Jesmond Mugliett is the new consultant for McGills, the people who are out to get the public transport contract (which means it’s probably in the bag already)

Published: February 1, 2014 at 10:59am

McGills

This the worst thing McGills could have done in terms of public relations: engage the services of Jesmond Mugliett, with his history of undermining the previous government on whose benches he sat, and his cosying up to the then Opposition with the likes of that immoral scum Jeffrey Pullicino Orlando.

What are people going to say? That he’s in there as a government stooge. That it’s the government – which has already engaged him in a position at Wasteserv – which suggested him to McGills as a consultant. That the fact that McGills is working through Jesmond Mugliett means that McGills have been handpicked by the government.

Isn’t this just like the government’s gesture in giving Franco Debono the car previously used by Carm Mifsud Bonnici when he was minister of Justice?

Jesmond Mugliett was not reappointed minister of transport in 2008 because of all the accusations of corruption flying at him, mainly and ironically from the Labour Party. He then went on to spend the next five years seething with resentment and anger, undermining the Gonzi government from within, and with an especially big axe to grind about the buses and Arriva.

It got to the stage where his mother-in-law, cunningly disguised with her common Maltese surname, wrote a letter to The Times criticising the bus service, and when I exposed the fact that this was Karen Mugliett’s mother pretending to be an ordinary citizen with no ulterior motive, Mugliett went nuts and began telling the Nationalist Party to shut me up (because you know, the Nationalist Party can and should have control over private citizens and clamp down on freedom of expression and the criticism of politicians).

That they chose Jesmond Mugliett is also a statement – yet again – about the manner in which companies that usually operate in a European context see doing business in Malta. You have to engage the services of somebody who is ‘in’ with the government, a fixer. In other words, we are third world. We operate with fixers.

Jesmond Mugliett. McGills have got to be kidding. The first thing they need, coming in after this long fiasco and the deep suspicion that Arriva was deliberately sabotaged and undermined by certain politicians, is credibility in the eyes of the public. And you don’t get that by engaging the services of a consultant called Jesmond Mugliett.




47 Comments Comment

  1. Coronado says:

    In Italian they say “faccia di bronzo “. Have these people no sense of shame or ethics.

  2. Coronado says:

    Poll

    Which party gained most from the citizenship controversy?

    The Labour Party
    47%

    The Nationalist Party
    48%

    Alternattiva

    3%

    Total number of votes: 5398

    Methinks the Times is waiting for the the Labour Party to get that elusive 1% advantage over the PN, before pulling this survey !

    • P Sant says:

      At one point it was PL 36%, PN 60%. Within a couple of hours, it was PL 47%, PN 48%.

      Methinks something fishy is happening there.

  3. observer says:

    Jesmond’s latest ‘appointment’ – whether by open selection or otherwise is immaterial or, in Maltese, ‘mhux xorta?’ – is that of consultant with Wasteserve.

    His first public appearance since is that in the role of consultant to McGills.

    Question 1: Are the roles compatible?. Some could even say they fit perfectly, seeing that McGills an their ex-Arriva man may very well be likened to vultures.

    Question 2: How come McGills came to select a waste consultant as their man? Some others could even say they deserve it, if they entered the lists bent on feeding off Arriva’s carrion.

  4. Pippa says:

    I bet you that this time round there won’t be a strike action by hundreds of drivers, on the first day of the McGill service, when it starts..

  5. Zambi Too says:

    Jesmond Mugliett – a hero for our times.

  6. Gaetano Pace says:

    I am sure that this “sweeper” is able to sweep dust under the carpet. He has been sweeping his back yard of black dust for the past ten years. No wonder that he has now become such an expert at sweeping clear of polluting corruption but maybe not a clean sweep. Only the broom will tell in time.

  7. makjavel says:

    This is called corruption .

    We will see Palumbo go the same way to open the way to somebody else.

  8. Coronado says:

    http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20140201/local/A-tale-of-prorogation-and-dissolution-in-Parliament.504970#.UuzUgsId-TN

    Kurt Sansone is hard at work justifying the start all over again of impeachment proceedings. Very cosy for the judge due to retire in summer and retain his full pension.

    And I thought it was one strike and you are out as in baseball.

  9. ghalgolhajt.com says:

    Dawn l-imbarazz ma jisthux minn Alla li halaqhom.

  10. ciccio says:

    McGills should take a look at this.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NCRxi6rdJVE

    If I am not mistaken, the reporter in this video is working at the Auberge de Castille.

  11. canon says:

    The Nationalists in government may have had many faults but never tampered with freedom of speech.

    In contrast, if you criticise the citizenship scheme proposed by Joseph Muscat, you are labelled a traitor. Ask David Casa and Roberta Metsola.

  12. mhasseb says:

    http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20140201/local/palumbo-claims-sabotage-by-fake-reports.505051

    Is this another Arriva in the making, with local commercial interests trying to oust a foreign private investor?

  13. Jozef says:

    Does McGills know Jesmond Mugliett’s track record as a cabinet minister, and why he failed to be reappointed to a cabinet post?

    I doubt he ever got anything done on time or within budget.

    And then there were all those accusations of corruption. Maybe the Labour Party has forgotten what it used to say about him in 2008.

  14. Hawk says:

    Arriva? Sabotage? What sabotage? Try remember what happened on the very first day of Arriva? So obvious.

  15. Dunstan says:

    This is likely to be `fishy`,gills and all.

  16. Joe Fenech says:

    “Fi żviluppi oħra, ġurnali lokali qed jirrappurtaw kif wieħed miż-żewġ propjetarji tal-kumpanija McGill’s, li tħaddem parti mit-trasport pubbliku fl-Iskozja, kien instab ħati f’każ ta’ frodi fil-VAT. Sandy Easdale kien inżamm il-Ħabs għal 18-il xahar fuq il-każ tal-1997. Kelliem għall-kumpanija McGill’s kien ikkwotat jgħid li Easdale m’għandu xejn x’jaħbi fuq li ġara.”

    • fm says:

      Ma jimpurtax ghax issa normali saret ghal dan il-gvern li jaghmilha ma’ dawn it-tip ta’ nies, u imbierek Alla l-poplu kuntent b’ dan il-hmieg kollu issa.

  17. edgar says:

    I am sure that Mugliett can show McGills how to cross the bridge when they get to it.

  18. giraffa says:

    Just like Arriva had been demonised by the Labour Party, press and hangers-on for two years before the general election (as part of their hate campaign against Austin Gatt), with the result that it was inevitably doomed and Joe Mizzi was only too happy to nail the coffin lid, now we will have the Nationalists who will do the same to McGills because of them being forced to have the wrong partner. McGills – you have been warned; Malta has the attitude of a third world country and fast descending into a lower status, so, if you decide to join ‘them’ because you can’t beat them, you had better factor that into your projections.

  19. Xejn Sew says:

    U ejja, everything is partisan politics with you!

    Truth is McGills probably engaged him on the strength of his stupendous track record.

    Pity they’re not in the bridge-building business. They’d make a fortune with his help. The Labour Party has a couple of interesting videos McGills could watch.

  20. bob-a-job says:

    I get the feeling that the next company to fall is going to be Palumbo Shipyards.

    My reasoning tells me that once the bus service is given back to the bus driver-owners under the direction of McGills, then the shipyards will be given back to the dockers under the guise of a new company and after Palumbo is made to fail on their contract, naturally.

  21. Wistin Schembri says:

    Will McGills buses be using Manwel Dimech Bridge?

  22. Antoine Vella says:

    What can Mugliett possibly be consulted about? His stint at being a minister wasn’t exactly a triumph.

  23. Jozef says:

    And the moment he’s involved, service up north’s in tilt.

    http://www.maltarightnow.com/?module=news&at=Diversi+rotot+ming%26%23295%3Bajr+karozzi+tal%2Dlinja&t=a&aid=99853979&cid=19

    Madoff papa’, hudni ferries.

    • Jozef says:

      It seems Times of Malta carried a report of complaints of fine black dust. Catania airport was closed temporarily due to Etna’s latest eruption earlier this week.

      And Privitera declares Palumbo as another GonziPN legacy – read, nothing good.

      Are we to understand that any investor who put his money into this country before last March should pack up and go home, Eddy?

      Now where did we last hear that?

  24. stephanie farrugia says:

    Haha..the irony….

  25. bob-a-job says:

    It seems that everything that Austin Gatt had created is going to be dismantled by this government.

    One wonders what is behind what seems to be a personal vendetta.

  26. Arriva bye bye says:

    I truly wonder what advice Mugliett will offer McGills in respect of public transport.

    With him as adviser it is a case of losing all hope that this island will ever have a half-decent system.

  27. Ernestoabroad says:

    Labour always on the wrong side of history.

    There goes Joey’s CHOGM.

    http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/feb/01/us-sri-lanka-un-human-rights-resolution

  28. anthony says:

    It is so sad that a professional person in his very early fifties should seemingly accept a cream pie to act as a fixer dished out by no other than Joey.

    He should be at the zenith of his career as an architect but instead he is down there grovelling with his mouth smelling strongly of faeces.

    It is such a shame. Such a waste.

  29. If investment from overseas is going to have such obvious political links, any investment is likely to stink. Serious investors will keep away.

  30. Corruption says:

    So it appears that not only Indian and Asian firms make good use of flawed and corrupt systems of governance when it comes to winning tenders and/or expressions of interest.

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