What disgusting hypocrisy – Chinese dictatorship methods
Australia Hall: the government goes after ex Enemalta boss for hotel bills while perpetrating this huge act of corruption itself.
Alex Tranter, former boss at Enemalta, is to be prosecuted “for misappropriation” because of – if I recall the original news reports in Malta Today – hotel expenses claimed when travelling on business for the company, and similar.
Meanwhile, the politicians who are going after him because of his own political connections have put their friends, campaign workers and families on the public payroll to the tune of Eur20 million a year.
Beneath today’s story about Alex Tranter on Times of Malta there are comments from the usual intellectually and socially challenged people who deserve all they get but who have landed us in the same soup through their sheer, unutterable stupidity. “Finally they are going after the big fish!”
What big fish? Alex Tranter and his alleged hotel expenses at Enemalta, when Enemalta itself has been sold off to the Chinese dictatorship with God knows how much of a cut going to fixers like World-Bank-blacklisted-for-corruption Shiv Nair, our prime minister’s actual or erstwhile consultant and adviser?
Fools, rejoice over the politically-motivated prosecution of one ex state corporation boss for allegedly spending more of your tax money on hotel rooms than he should have – a matter of a few thousands at most? – while the politicians who have gone after him are spending millions more of your tax money every year by paying out salaries and fees for ‘imaginary’ jobs created for those to whom they owe favours.
THAT is corruption.
The same newspaper includes a report on the fact that the Labour Party has been able to sell Australia Hall in St Andrew’s to private business (for millions) after the incoming Labour government – in yet another act of blatant, shameless corruption – dropped the government’s case to regain possession of the property.
This is not only corruption, but cheating the taxpayer. Had the government continued with the case and reacquired the property, it would have been able to sell Australia Hall itself, with the money going into the public coffers to be used for the public good, or at least to put a small dent into the huge wage bill of the friends it has put on the public payroll.
Instead, the money has gone into the coffers of the Labour Party, ostensibly to pay its bills – oh, hasn’t the Chinese dictatorship and other corrupt donors paid them already? – but really to increase its war chest.
If the Labour Party really wanted the money to pay its outstanding dues with the government, it would have reached the same ‘arrangement’ with the government that the operators of Cafe Premier did: giving government property back to the government in exchange for wiping out its outstanding dues to that same government.
But it didn’t, did it, which means that it wants the money for something else.
And the idiots rejoice and celebrate because the government is using the Chinese model to make a public example of Alex Tranter while ploughing ahead with its own rampant corruption, abuse and cronyism.
X’pajjiz ta’ idjoti u injoranti. What a tragedy.
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Right or wrong depends on which political colour you are. Add this to the above examples.
http://www.independent.com.mt/articles/2014-08-31/news/running-illegal-hotel-no-reason-to-resign-from-transport-malta-board-ministry-6401163265/
Those fools are the ones who don’t pay any tax at all.
Everyone pays some sort of tax, Dorian. VAT is paid by everyone, while income tax is paid by the middle-class and others are charged 35% withholding tax on the dividends they receive.
There is no dividend withholding tax in Malta
Was it even legally possible for Labour to sell it?
Opens a can of worms, what with every estate tenant now expecting the same treatment.
So do we know how much they sold it for?
It must be written in a public contract – it is the transfer of property we are talking about here.
They’ve really mastered the art of the red herring – and herrings ‘kbar’ at that – haven’t they?
Add the tu quoque fallacy to that arsenal, and you’ve got a government that’s practically immune to any sort of public backlash and criticism in rationally undiscerning country such as this.
http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20140831/local/pl-sells-australia-hall-to-settle-debts-keeps-raffles.533849
The Labour Party is a conduit for millions of Euros which it gets from selling national assets to faceless buyers (energy sector), embezzling public land (Australia Hall), acting as accomplice to theft of public land (meters to Armier huts), useless job creation (Sai Mizzi, Willie garage Mangion).
Corruption is so omnipresent that it no longer seen as odd.
Il-vera ma jisthux. These are the same people who up till a year ago were pin pointing the previous government and crying foul.
We’re back to the old Labour days, and now they’re really proud calling themselves Laburisti, to remind us what they are really like. And for a minute before the election, everyone thought they might have changed their ways. Four years to go b’dawn il-qzizati, and we’re in for more surprises from their present attitude.
The list of corrupting practices during these 18 months of PL government is just shocking. The government structures have just dissolved to nothing. This corruption will hurt us big time in the months to come.
and where is the Nationalist Party?
Trying to talk, but so many people are so busy listening to themselves and passing comments that they are deaf to everything else around them.
Starting from you Ms. Pirotta, the Nationalist Party have commented on this on a number of occasions, but have you followed the news or stopped to listen what they are saying?
We were warned – we ignored the warning – we pay.
I really don’t get this Daphne. You seem to say that its all right for someone trusted with a company’s credit card to abuse it by a few thousand Euros as long as Labour fritters away my hard earned taxes.
[Daphne – No, that is NOT what I am saying here, but something entirely different: that scapegoating of one’s political enemies while practising rampant corruption oneself is a totalitarian tactic. It serves the dual purpose of menacing other perceived enemies who will then do your bidding or keep their head below the parapet out of fear, while distracting the intellectually and morally challenged from what the worst perpetrators in power are doing themselves. Worse still are the headlines: ‘Misappropriation’, as though this man embezzled money routinely. You cannot possibly be serious about the company credit card. Have you any idea how much members of the government are spending on their own travel and delegations? That’s your money, too. But do you honestly imagine the police are going to prosecute, say, Sai Mizzi? THAT is what I mean.]
To me this is the same reasoning as Joseph’s, he always mentions something wrong real or imagined done by the previous administration whenever cornered.
At this point I strongly believe that politicians of whatever hue only aspire to gain power to enrich themselves.
[Daphne – You have have misunderstood everything. My argument is not tu quoque, but as described above. The tragedy of human existence is that totalitarian governments, and people with a totalitarian bent, manipulate situations of ignorance and failures of perception, like yours, among those who are not ignorant.]
Somehow society must find new solutions to manage government. Anyone in power should be held criminally responsible for their actions.
This abuse of public funds through sheer incompetence or through criminal intent must stop.
Marco, this is not abuse of funds, this is criminal fraud
Wait for more frame-ups on many others. The MLP needs a lot of them for the forthcoming elections, whenever these are held.
It could be the case that Joseph Muscat is planning to detoxify his promise of resigning if the LNG thing is not ready by March 2015 by holding early elections, winning them by a reduced majority, but would hold on to the moral higher ground on this failed promise.
The other option is to not resign and just take the crap with his standard stupid grin for the rest of the legislature.
With Cafe Premier the Government did not only wipe out the debts owed to the Government. It also used taxpayers’ monies to pay the shareholder loans, effectively passing the burden of the loss of their failed business to the taxpayer.
And the cherry on the cake – the government paid one of the directors, Mario Camilleri, for arranging this deal with government to save his sorry ass and that of his partner, Neville Curmi.
That doesn’t make Neville Curmi the good guy. Far from it. He’s a taker and opportunist like the rest of them. It just makes Mario Camilleri somewhat worse.
Saviour Balzan actually does a good job here in spelling it all out http://www.maltatoday.com.mt/printversion/42636/#.VAQMWGIaySM
The speed with which this deal was made shows that it must have been struck before the election. What crooks, the ruddy lot of them.
Great. Now I expect a refund for my espressos. From Konrad or anyone else – I’m not fussy.
Bastards.
“According to the police investigation, it turns out that Cities Entertainment were trying to sell off their government lease on the market due to business losses and outstanding rental arrears.”
I would like to see the contract. It is not usual that one is allowed to sub-let or sell off a government lease. The ‘big excuse’ for this deal rests solely on this point.
U tal-PN reqdin.
Busuttil has to go, not because of lack of competence, but because he can’t match or even counter Labour’s brutality. But will a party without any Guidos and Eddies stand a chance?
It was in the interest of the KLIKKA to choose the weakest one as leader, for obvious reasons.
You can be assured that the party has worthy and capable persons to be other Guidos, Eddies and Dallis.
.
The problem is will they be ever given a chance?
And who will take his place?
I don’t want yet another Demarco or Fenech Adami. It is doubtful whether the latter will stay on, anyway.
In an ideal world, the party would be led by Helga Ellul.
Yes, by God, Helga Ellul. With Ray Bugeja as deputy. And minus a lot of the current crop, including the useless zaghzagh. But keep Karl Gouder. He’s switched on.
Better still, I could be leader, with Helga Ellul as my future foreign minister and Ray Bugeja as my finance and economy minister. But then the party wouldn’t be PN. We’d stand on a platform of cold, hard rationalism, sustainable policies and warm, tender love for Western civilisation.
Alas, we’d lose the election. Unless we literally bribe the voters.
Baxxter: Helga is too civilised for Malta, so Malta’s destiny is to become a single-party state.
No Busuttil does not have to go….Labour have to go, and we have to kick them out
They’re not, you’re the ones who are sleeping, or too lazy to hear them. It is very convenient to pass sweeping comments and not take responsibility for your own actions.
I don’t need the Nationalist to tell me that this is wrong, even though, I will point out (again) that they have.
This blaming the Nationalist is getting old and boring. Grow a pair of balls Mario and take action yourself
What about Anne Fenech … If there’s someone with the stomach for a fight she’s bound to be in that list.
While pocketing the proceeds of the passport sales scheme? No way. PN hypocrisy at its worst.
http://www.sundaycircle.com/2014/09/using-peters-money-to-pay-pauls-debts/