While “the old clique ruled”: Robert Abela baptised his child at Verdala Palace and put up a marble plaque to commemorate the great event for posterity

Yesterday evening I wrote a post about Robert Abela’s hideous arrogance in talking about “the old clique” of pre 2013 and how he and his father benefited mightily from it, with an estimate of close to €2 million in fees billed to the Planning Authority under contract for ‘legal services’, and five years making themselves at home at San Anton Palace and Verdala Palace, with a retinue of servants and living off the fat of the land.

In that post, I mentioned in passing that these disgraceful, arrogant and avaricious bogans – Robert Abela and his wife Lydia, executive secretary of the Labour Party – even had their baby baptised in the chapel at Verdala Palace, in 2011, when the evil Gonzi and his old clique, who made Robert’s father head of state, was prime minister.

And to make matters infinitely worse, they planted a tree to make the momentous occasion, which was just an excuse to leave behind for posterity a big, chunky marble plaque with their daughter Georgia-Mae’s name on it. And Robert’s sister did the same when her son was baptised.

Readers seem to have homed on this passing detail in my post yesterday, seeing it as somehow more worthy of comment than the fact that Robert Abela and his father were given a contract undeservedly by the Malta Environment and Planning Authority in 2001 as thanks for George Abela’s “behind the scenes” support for the Nationalist government in its drive towards EU membership.

The contract included a ‘renewal clause’ which means that George Abela, and later his son Robert and his wife Lydia, have been billing the Planning Authority for 16 years. By 2011, when Robert Abela was baptising his baby at Verdala Palace and littering the garden with a commemorative plaque, they had already billed €1.23 million in fees over the previous decade. And that was six years ago.

In any case, given people’s fascination with the fact of these marble plaques, and their desire to know more,
I pulled up the post I wrote about it on 30 January 2013. And I’ve also included the original photographs below.