Mallia says he routinely had no control over press releases issued by his own ministry
Published:
December 11, 2014 at 11:28pm
“When the facts were determined by others” – well, we knew already that there’s a control-freak situation going on at the Office of the Prime Minister, which has given strict instructions that no press statement is to go out without being vetted by the PM’s men. But this is beyond belief. If a press release goes out under the name of a particular ministry, then the final seal of approval has to come from that ministry.
I can’t believe how all those cabinet members are allowing the Office of the Prime Minister to write the press releases which go out under their names. Il-vera pcielaq – power over backbone.
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“Veracity”.
In this case, we know it’s a 100% genuine Manuel Mallia statement.
But you are only saying that ‘a caldo’ and ‘ai termini’ of…whatever.
Hawnhekka jidher illi l-Ministru qed jivventila l-verita.
The problem with Maltese politics is no backbone.
The w*nker doesn’t know when to stop digging his own hole.
What do you expect – have you seen the f***ing size of him?
I think you are wrong. Read the letter again, this time with the eyes of a defence lawyer defending someone who is fighting for his life, where he refuses pointblank to accept any form of responsibility whatsoever and which the inquiry of the three retired judges actually confirmed.
Then he throws a sentence that in anywhere in the democratic world would reduce that inquiry report to the arse-wipe that it is.
“This fact could have easily been corroborated by at least two persons who, even though I asked them to confirm this, they didn’t testify or were not asked to testify.”
Who are these two mysterious witnesses? Why didn’t they testify? Or why weren’t they asked to testify?
Make no mistake, this man has been writing these kind of high-falutin’ letters and documents replete with Italianate legalese from God knows when.
For all his cleverness, he mentioned Sheehan, when in the circumstances would have been wiser not to.
Simon Busuttil should call him out on that letter, call his bluff. If you press him hard enough, he cracks, and when he cracks he lashes out, and when you lash out, you lose the initiative and then it’s only a matter of time before the whole house of cards falls down.
I believe the Nationalist Party has only one shot at this, in three years’ time. If that shot fails, it would be catastrophic for Malta.
In 10 years the world will be very different from the world we know today. The lead will be insurmountable. And the Nationalist Party would cease to exist. Just as the Labour Party would have ceased to exist if it had lost the last election.
Muscat had one shot and he took it brilliantly using all his resources in one last massive overwhelming push. And it paid off.
I am convinced that it is, to quote the energy minister, ‘doable’.
Facts should be facts, and not “determined by others”.
Because as Ugo Betti wrote: “Cosi’ e’ se vi pare.”
Anyone with a basic knowledge of the machinery of government would be aware that press releases must never be issued without the minister’s final blessing.
Same with replies to parliamentary questions. Any deviation from this unwritten rule is tantamount to an abdication of responsibility.
Yes, sure, but Joseph promised a different way of governing: Kurt the Keychain writing out press releases while he is asleep.
@Tarzan
Good catch.
I smell a ‘subtle’ Freudian slip.
I find it shocking that the Minister tried to esculpate himself from taking the responsibility for some press releases.
As Minister, he is responsible even if the facts were determined by others.
If he did not believe what was ‘determined by others’, then it was right and proper for him to veto the release.
This simply goes to show that these cover ups are a normal occurrence and nobody will ever know the extent of damage these people are doing to our country.
If by that statement he is indicating that the control of such statements are in the hands of Dr. Joseph Muscat, then the Prime Minister should have been the one to get the sack.
He is basically telling us that they are all yes man and that statements issued by ministries are actually issued by the sleeping Prime Minister and his men.
When such statements are issued, having or not having been viewed by the Minister, he is still responsible for them. If Manuel Mallia wanted things to work right he should have made sure he was proficient enough to take on a ministerial post before accepting the job.
He is making his calculations: is it less costly to look guilty or to look negligent?
Negligent leaves more room for manoeuvre, as it might elicit some sympathy from those who think that Mallia was working so hard he couldn’t be expected to oversee every detail. After all he did have a meal to concentrate on at the Police HQ.
The criminal lawyer thinks, well, like a criminal lawyer so true to form “he might have known that the car was hit” and (hypothetically speaking) if he did, his intentions were pure (insert symbol for sarcasm here).
This is institutional deception on a massive scale.
It is not the much touted Joseph Muscat government transparency. Evidently there is no transparency at all, not even between cabinet ministers and their prime minister – let alone between government and governed.
That is Labour style democracy as it is put into practice.
What does he know about veracity? He lies through his teeth.
A lawyer of his ilk comes out with “facts in the statements determined by others”. So statements are not based on facts as they are/were but on what “others” determine? Try that one in court, Emmanuel.
I think the former Minister is saying two things here:
1. That there have been cases where statements were issued by others about facts verified by them, and he accepted those statements without checking them.
2. That on 19 November, the statement issued by Kurt Farrugia was supposed to have been factually checked by Kurt Farrugia, so he did not check it. He is effectively blaming Kurt Farrugia.
In his statements, Mallia insists that he had not written or seen the statement up to the time it was released.
He never says if he had influenced its content or if it had been read to him.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hLRMshlTWuk