In any normal country, using his state-paid driver as a baby-sitter would be sufficient grounds for a minister’s resignation
But in Malta, that is taken as a minor detail – as though it is entirely normal and acceptable for ministers of state to use their state-paid drivers for personal purposes like baby-sitting – and we just carry on and discuss whether he should have resigned because his driver shot at somebody in the street.
That is how perverted things are here in Malta. Whereas in the more civilised world (not Italy) people would be demanding the minister’s resignation for leaving his four-year-old daughter in the care of his crazy driver – abuse of state funds coupled with reckless irresponsibility – we are actually discussing whether he should have gone because his man shot at another man.
It’s the entire country that needs to wake up and smell the coffee and not just its prime minister and his band of 40 thieves.
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Who said this is a normal country?
Years back, I had got so used to meeting a Nationalist minister’s car ferrying children to school while I’d be driving to work, that I still vividly recall that it was a silver Jaguar X Type with number GM10.
A genetic sense of entitlement which pervades the Maltese psyche. Plus ça change.
I agree that any government minister’s car should not be used to ferry children or used for errands by the minister’s wife or husband.
It does not look at all good and it has to be stopped once and for all.
Having said this the Spouse of the Prime Minister went a step further; she has a hired car with a chauffeur at her disposal.
I am informed that not only politicians enjoy such privileges, but also other state officials entitled to a state-funded chauffeur-driven cars, such as members of the judiciary.
There must be other state and parastatal functionaries who behave in a similar way.
It’s not only the Maltese psyche that badly needs a shake-up if we really want to control corruption and the ‘anything goes’ behaviour.
“Il-huta minn rasha tinten.”
The sad thing is I’ve grown to quite like this little island (I’m from Scandinavia). Before the last election I was – reluctantly – reassuring my Maltese wife that it can’t be that bad if labour wins.
This is a modern democracy and they can’t go back to where they were in the 80s and so on, I said to her. Now there isn’t a day that goes by where I don’t get that thrown in my face.
So, for all the reasons to be pissed off at Labour, there is none greater than the constant “I told you so” I get from my wife.
I’ve more or less given up on making sense of these things. This is going to be shit until the next general election, where perhaps they have screwed up enough to get voted out and we can return to some reason.
If not I need to speed up teaching my two children proper Swedish so that we can get the hell out of Malta. In the meantime I think mockery, sarcasm and a dark sense of humour is the one saving grace I have.
Many have fond AND exasperating memories of discussions with their Scandinavin business counterparts and attempts to explain the situation here.
How did one get an import licence back then for example or how were containers checked?
The bartering imposition, the ever changing declarations requested on invoices, the daily changes to quotas and licence conditions.
Whatever your wife told you, there is much, much more to be told.
There was always a marked silence on the other end of the line when a new person asked for some info and had to be told that the info would take some time to get because the government did not allow computers.
“ever changing declarations requested”
“a marked silence on the other end of the line”
These forms of MLP torture chambers have returned as current.
A country, indeed any group of society, needs someone to lead it, and if the country had to live by decent moral values the leader must show, and live by, such standards as an example.
In Malta we have had such leaders in the past, but regrettably, such leaders are becoming rare. Society is to blame that it is not able, in spite of all the claims of liberal progress, to distinguish the wheat from the chaff.
I used to argue with a friend who used to refer to Malta as a shit country. Today I realise that he is so right. This is a shit country for shit people. With apologies to decent people.
You can only get through it if you keep to yourself and stay at home as much as possible. It is not always possible but wherever you go there are problems be it a restaurant, shops, government departments, everything.
What hurts the most is that we had so much potential. Now we’re just plain f*cked.
They all need to rest after only twenty-two months in government. And they said they want to stick it out for twenty-five.
http://www.independent.com.mt/articles/2014-12-11/local-news/Silvio-Scerri-says-he-is-resting-eyeing-opportunities-in-the-private-sector-6736127148
Thank God for little mercies.
No self respecting minister or driver would do that in the first place.
Meanwhile, in the UK, an MP apologises unreservedly after being caught playing a video-game during a Commons Committee hearing.
http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-30375609
I’m afraid Italians have caught on to civic duty and demanding correct behaviour by the ones in authority.
Especially those who made of the moral question their rallying cry.
Here’s what happened to the mayor of Rome, Marino, who until recently used to park his little red Panda where he shouldn’t.
http://www.dagospia.com/rubrica-3/politica/vieni-avanti-marino-dopo-settimane-polemiche-sit-prefettura-87595.htm
Yes, the previous one Alemanno kept the same sort of company as Manuel Mallia though.
same fascist roots
Renting their cars to the state
Babysitting
Shopping trips
School transportation
Holidays and more
All paid for by the state that is us tax payers.
What do these people intend to do with all the money they are stealing? Would they ever have enough of it?
It’s good to have money and the things that money can buy, but it’s good, too, to check up once in a while and make sure that you haven’t lost the things that money can’t buy. –George Lorimer
The police driver wouldn’t object (let’s say he could) to chauffeuring the boss’s kid/s because high-ranking police officers use police cars to do the same.
These drivers are known also to run errands by order of the wife of the senior officer, like buying bread or taking her to the hairdresser.
This explains why Manwel was so successful in allowing police officers to wait on tables.
He conveniently translated ‘in the service of the public’ literally.