Jimmy Magro has been fired. But they’ll put him in another carriage on the gravy-train.

Jimmy Magro, the Labour Party’s long-time secretary-general and Jason Micallef’s predecessor in that role, has lost his government-appointed jobs and directorships because the Permanent Commission Against Corruption says he asked for a 10% cut – €25,000 – on a tender for the Association of Local Councils in 2014.

He had been the association’s executive director, but in 2013, when Taghna Lkoll were elected to power, he stepped down from that post because he was given a more interesting and lucrative one at Malta Enterprise. He continued to work for the association as a consultant.

Though he has lost his positions, I can’t help but think that – like all the other people this government has fired or asked to resign – he’ll be put on in another carriage on the gravy-train, and the public won’t be told but left to find out for themselves when a journalist trips over a piece of information by chance.

When I read about Magro’s interest in backhanders, I remembered that he’s also a bit of a nittien and that I once had a couple of posts about this, maybe three years ago. I find that this kind of thing tends to go together: they develop a habit – drugs, compulsive shopping, women, gambling, whatever – and then they begin to figuratively rob the bank to pay for it.

And before anybody writes in to point out that Wendy is a transsexual prostitute – yes, I worked that out.