GUEST POST: “It might well be the best possible deal for them on a personal basis, given the corruption in Azerbaijan”
This was written this morning by a former aide to a cabinet minister in the previous two governments.
There are many odd things about that delegation to Azerbaijan, but the oddest thing is that it’s a political-only delegation. That only happens at party meetings – say, a European socialist party meeting or an invitation from the Chinese communist party.
And then Malta’s would not be a government delegation but a party delegation.
Bilateral meetings between governments are always based on the permanent foreign office and embassy staff on both sides of the table. This is because they are the experts who ‘follow’ the opposite country professionally.
Journalists, or the Opposition in parliament, should ask for the list of names on Azerbaijan’s side of the table. Almost certainly, bureaucrats will have been on that list, expecting to meet their Maltese opposite number to talk and then to follow up on the meeting’s conclusions.
The only possible reason prime minister Muscat would keep out all Maltese bureaucrats and diplomats is that he does not want a record of the meeting or the risk of a leak. This is when he is meeting one of the world’s most notoriously corrupt regimes.
On top of that, he is on a visit aimed at negotiating public procurement for Enemalta. This is, in principle, as insane as Transport Minister Joe Mizzi flying off to Spain with Transport Malta chief James Piscopo to ‘check out’ the bus company bidding for the public transport tender in Malta, when his sole expertise on buses is that he has occasionally travelled on one (if at all).
What is the collective expertise in gas procurement of the four-man Malta government delegation to Azerbaijan? Kurt Farrugia worked for the Labour Party’s television station until March last year. Keith Schembri imports paper and printing equipment. Konrad Mizzi worked in IT at Enemalta and before that, as a civil servant in charge of roundabouts and public planting. Joseph Muscat was a member of the European Parliament for four years and before that worked for the Labour Party in its propaganda department. They know nothing about the subject and they have gone there alone.
What’s more, why is a deal being struck without a worldwide competitive call for offers? We cannot know that this is the best possible deal, though it might well be the best possible deal for them on a personal basis given the nature of the extensive corruption in Azerbaijan. Something is very wrong here.
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It is now quite obvious that these bunch of incompetents are only in this for their own personal gain.
Those cunning and corrupt enough among them will make a fortune ‘a la Lorry Sant’, while the others will be just accessories.
They will not give a hoot about the consequences for the country in general, as long as their future is secured financially ten times over.
After all, in time, the people will forget and they might even end up with a monument erected for them in some Maltese garden.
[Daphne – Yes. They might even end up EU Commissioner.]
So, now that the secret visit is not secret anymore, the Azeris were furious and told Muscat to behave like it was some official visit.
He had to go and bow at a statue and salute a flag – in other words eat humble pie, and then pose at a big table in front of a multitude of bureaucrats pretending to be holding talks.
Before sending Christians to be martyred, the Romans used to humiliate them by telling them to make offerings to the gods and to Caesar and if they do so, they will be spared the cruel death in the lions’ arena. Naturally, many preferred to save their skin.
Will public opinion turn out to be Muscat’s arena, or will he be saved by the MOU taken to be an important binding agreement by a largely ignorant Maltese public?
Something really stinks about this visit. No diplomatic representatives, and no Maltese media, so worse than the host dictator country the Labour Party delegates were visiting.
Their politics are related to their morals
These twats need to be analyzed by a good shrink with a speciality in criminal profiling , then the results should be tabled in Parliament and splashed on the national media .
And thank you to the guest, worrying thoughts but great post.
If something like done was done by a Nationalist government, Toni Zarb and Toni Abela would have camped outside Castille.
To hell with democracy, protocol and ethics, we’re Labour.
Does anyone of the four Maltese here have a legal background?
Mr. Rasizade stressed the importance of the visit of Maltese counterpart to Azerbaijan in terms of creating legal framework for the expansion of cooperation between the two countries. “This visit would contribute to the expansion of ties between the two countries in all fields”, Rasizade said.
http://azertag.az/en/xeber/Azerbaijan_Malta_sign_documents-818305
Who said they went there alone? There may have been others who don’t appear in the photograph.
Shiv Nair, for instance, famously was in Muscat’s delegation to Qatar, but equally famously didn’t appear in the photographs. The only reason we know he was there is that someone on Qatar’s PR team let slip his name.
We have no information about what happened to that person, and whether he is now dead or alive.
Isn’t there a European body which is on the lookout for corruption?
There is definitely a World Bank which fights corruption.
Some years ago, Siemens had been blacklisted by the World Bank because of corruption, but later it entered into a settlement deal with the Bank on condition that it will not involve itself in corruption and to support anti-corruption work.
Siemens should be aware of the risk it finds itself in by associating its good name with that of the present Labour government which is dealing with one of the most corrupt governments in connection with a project in which Siemens is involved.
Is the Maltese government negotiating with the corrupt state of Azerbaijan and its corrupt officers and leaders on behalf of Siemens as part of Electrogas?
The World Bank should be looking at these deals here and understand if Siemens is benefitting from them.
It is up to Siemens to see that no corruption is done on its behalf.
http://web.worldbank.org/WBSITE/EXTERNAL/NEWS/0,,contentMDK:22234573~pagePK:34370~piPK:34424~theSitePK:4607,00.html
Yes, but it’s a corpse.
What is more worrying is that Muscat is not learning from his mistakes.
When the much flaunted deal with Libya went to the dogs for the reasons everyone is well aware of, he did not seem to register that dealing with pariah states carries an inherent risk. Maybe he missed that lesson when he was reading for his public policy doctorate?
Deals with dictatorial states can go horribly wrong, very, very quickly.
There may be a popular uprising (see Ukraine, Libya, etc.) where all previous agreements are torn up because they are considered to have been signed with an enemy of the people.
Even if any uprising is quashed, there is always the risk that international organisations such as the UN or the EU impose trade sanctions which could summarily cut-off any trade links.
What would we do then, veto the sanctions and become a pariah ourselves? If we continue on this Mintoffian-style governance, this becomes a very real possibility.
The only reason it is worth dealing (for the prime minister and company, not Malta) with these regimes, is that they are prone to offer sweeteners (and I don’t mean saccharine) to the folks at the table.
It’s a shame we can’t check their bank accounts or property holdings outside Malta.
He doesn’t see them as ‘his’ mistakes. For him, the fault lies always with the others or with changed situations.
And as long as he sees it that way, he will not learn. And sadly, will not change.
ICIJ’s Offshore Leaks did http://www.icij.org/offshore/offshore-companies-provide-link-between-corporate-mogul-and-azerbaijans-president
Joe Muscat’s asshole is tightening up. So much is at stake with the energy project that ‘the end justifies the means’ tactics will prevail, irrespective of how much Labour’s credibility will suffer in other sectors.
How unprofessional and so amateurish. They are governing our country as if they are managing More Supermarkets. Unbelievable, but this is the truth.
What else?
Ah so Minister Konrad Mizzi worked also at the environment landscape consortium with the chief of staff and Jason Azzopardi, interesting.
They’re there to do things that they need to hide from everyone, maybe even from their own party members, ministers and all.
The sale of citizenship scheme was originally designed for corruption and graft via millionaires from corrupt countries run by corrupt politicians or dictators.
This corrupt regime needs to go ASAP, for our children’s sake at least.
Another article worth a mention:
”Our Bully Beef Joseph”
Summing up the sad truth about life in Malta under the LP.
http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20141216/opinion/Our-Bully-Beef-Joseph.548472
‘What’s more, why is a deal being struck without a worldwide competitive call for offers?’
Isn’t this in itself an infringement of EU regulations?
Very pertinent point. It is unheard of that no civil servants would be present at a meeting of this nature.
You would expect staff from the Foreign Office and from the Energy Ministry to be there.
I have some experience of the region and can confirm that it is totally in keeping with the Azeri approach to deal on a personal basis, because there is little distinction between business and government.
This also means that there is little or no auditing of what goes on. That is a corrupt dictatorship, accountable to nobody and nothing.
But this is certainly not acceptable for an EU member state and the prime minister may be in for some surprise questions from his colleagues when he attends the European Council later this week.
It’s why he kept it as secret as possible.
The real question remains, what happened to Electrogas and who gets to supply Malta, an EU member state, with its gas requirements on an exclusive basis contradicting the envisaged energetic strategy.
And is there some other condition, namely linked to Malta’s territorial waters and the possibility of this government lobbying obo Azerbaijan to disrupt the pipeline pooling together Iran, Israel and Cyprus as suppliers?
One of the MOUs concerns energy exploration in Malta’s territorial waters.
There you have it.
Pity Muscat is late. Renzi got his deal with the Chinese, committed to build their changeover to gas using Ansaldo built turbines.
That should iron out any differences of opinion for the south line’s route AND pick up Edison’s proposal for the pipeline from North Africa.
We’ll just sit there looking at the world pass us by.
Two years they’ve been at it, scheming on their own, all that’s left is to lose out on the main interconnector feeding off North Africa.
Makes us a roundabout, Konrad likes those.
It’s either gross incompetence or corruption. If anyone can think of any other options, let me know.
Why did I say “or”? It could also be both.
Wait for another hit and run press release to cover up the real purpose of the visit.
This time they made sure no independent journalist or photographer, or civil servant, or any potential whistleblower, was going to uncover the truth. Liars and cheats.
It would indeed be interesting to know the designations of the Azeri delegation members.
Russia and the ex Soviet states are, if anything, sticklers for protocol and procedure. No doubt their foreign office was represented, probably at ambassadorial and/or director level.
The composition of the ‘Malta delegation’ is nothing but reflective of the contempt by which this government has treated the civil service since it was voted in, shunting aside professionals of integrity in the topmost grades and appointing political lackeys in their stead.
This is the real oil/gas scandal, not the one they talked about before the elections.
It is NOT a visit aimed at negotiating public procurement for Enemalta.
What that picture says is the next set of instructions. That stone-cold palace is designed to intimidate.
Googling “Who buys oil or gas from Azerbaijan?” may reveal interesting reading.
Armenian sources claim that importing from or investing in Azerbaijan is tantamount to financing the corrupt and totalitarian state to wage war against them.
Armenia and Azerbaijan are both ex-Soviet republics, the former is relatively one of the most democratic while the latter is anything but.
Gaddafi scheme all over again?
Exactly. And if we have to put some nous into the thing, Armenia happens to be eastern Christianity’s shrine. Azerbaijan are a bunch of sun-worshippers.
Only Kazhakistan is worse: the dead leader’s palm print is surrounded by a plethora of Zoroastrian scriptures in a golden sphere dominating the capital.
Blame that Eurovision.
I blame George Bush Senior, Margaret Thatcher, and the IMF.
Free markets before freedom, and freedom before civilisation.
Which, incidentally, is exactly Malta’s problem.
Perhaps Joseph Muscat and his team are preparing their getaway for when the people of Malta realize that they have been taken for a ride by this bunch of pimps and thieves.