John Cassar White, Lino Bianco, Sandro Chetcuti, Jason Micallef…and President Coleiro
Published:
May 4, 2014 at 11:30am
My column in The Malta Independent on Sunday today…
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http://www.independent.com.mt/articles/2014-05-04/opinions/an-ambassador-as-electoral-candidate-or-is-it-the-other-way-round-4844290048/
I used to cringe when I heard about the behaviour of John Cassar White and his coterie of Laburisti at Bank of Valletta, but no longer because with every passing day, the atrocities become the norm. Those people are shameless.
Cassar White felt he had the power to grant promotions in a way which is totally not transparent, in a made-up grievance process whereby all the Labour supporters who never merited promotions and so never got them have now been promoted – and with backdated payments, if you please.
Cassar White has transformed his office at the bank into a Labour Party club.
He set up a ‘foundation’ – the Marigold Foundation – so that the prime minister’s pushy wife can have a charity to use to promote herself and ‘get treatment’. The Marigold Foundation has become the Michelle Muscat Foundation and not a Bank of Valletta foundation which happens to be chaired by Mrs Muscat.
The Bank of Valletta chairman is appointed by the government but that does not mean he has any allegiance to the government or that it should be a political appointment. Chairing the board of directors of a bank is very serious business – he has a duty to the shareholders and the board of directors. Yet he comes from a drydocks background.
The bank’s chief executive officer is, as the name suggests, the one who takes executive decisions – but John Cassar White has completely taken over the CEO’s role and is now running the bank with his team of Labour intellectuals (an oxymoron if ever there was one) with no regard to corporate governance structures.
As chairman of Bank of Valletta, Cassar White should never have attended the ‘taht it tinda’ sessions with his buddy the Labour leader. It is simply not done – you are representing a financial institution trusted by many and being part of a politically partisan event – more so of a political party that never gave a rat’s ass about financial services – makes you just as lame as they are.
A word of advice to John Cassar White: if you are in doubt you may wish to consider asking yourself ‘What would Roderick Chalmers do’? I am sure in that way you will end up doing the right thing.
It seems that €50 million profit was recorded in the interim results. This is €15 million less than last year, but no journalist challenged the bank’s chairman about this or asked him about his plans to arrest the losses.
Bank of Valletta mployees are being moved around like pawns in a game of chess, with no regard to competence and merit. People with expertise are tossed aside while bullies and ‘nies tal-qalba’ are given prominent positions despite their lack of knowledge, experience and training. Does Cassar White understand that he is dealing with a bank and not a bankrupt sink-pit like the Drydocks? Bad decisions taken by people with no expertise can only lead to mistakes, which then lead to lawsuits which will ultimately harm the reputation of the bank and increase losses. There are also confidentiality issues with client data.
I think it’s time former Finance Minister Tonio Fenech takes another shot in parliament at addressing this issue. I truly admired him when he brought this to the Prime Minister’s attention in parliament a few months ago. These are not issues which can be swept under the carpet.
Bank of Valletta is a jewel in the Maltese financial services industry – no one should allow a politically-motivated novice like Cassar White to shake the stability and credibility of this institution.
As a Bank of Valletta employee, I endorse every (i.e. EVERY) word written by Enough is Enough, especially the bit about the farcical made-up grievance process, with semi-literate Labour supporting bank employees getting promoted just because they are members of the GWU.
When asked by the Malta Union of Bank Employees for the publication of the list of those promoted, the bank’s head of human resources issued a link to ALL the current staff roles.
OK, one could do a simple search for ‘2014’ and get the names of those promoted through the grievance process, but… wait… many of the promotions were backdated, and so this simple search is impossible because their new role has been camouflaged inside the whole 1,500 or so staff list.
To add insult to injury, we now get to hear about the chairman addressing a political event.
Please bring back Mr. Chalmers!
President Coleiro left the Archbishop, two former presidents and the entire congregation waiting for a full 10 minutes before she made her solo entrance to St. Publius Church for high mass this morning.
There was speculation that church authorities had through an oversight forgotten to invite Mr Preca and that she was sulking. Others suggested that perhaps she was late because saying the rosary in bed with Mr Preca took a little longer than necessary.
Or perhaps their path out of the palace had been blocked by a crowd of same-sex couples having their pre-wedding videos taken in the private garden against payment of a small fee.
Church services should start on time and not wait for anybody including presidents or prime ministers.
John Cassar White started his banking career at the National Bank of Malta in the early seventies.
Be it enough to say that during the “good old days” he was fast-tracked. He was buddy-buddy with Denis Sammut and had adjacent offices. He was seconded to Malta Drydocks – quite a poisoned chalice – when the corporation was on its death-bed.
Maybe his appearance at the MLP activity was a “quid pro quo” for his appointment as Bank of Valletta chairman.