It’s time to put the word KICKBACKS into the language

Language and vocabulary are directly related to social culture. Maltese uses the English ‘commission’ for a cut of any kind of deal, whether licit or illicit.

It does not have a word for an illicit cut, because in Maltese culture, anyone can take a cut from anything, and it is their ‘right’. There is absolutely no awareness that some cuts are completely illegal, by their very nature, and especially when you are a politician.

But people are learning fast, and now they need the word to distinguish illicit and illegal cuts from legal ones.

Commission is completely legal. The Opposition leader’s insistence on using this word has allowed the cheats on the other side of the fence to say so, and to justify their actions. ‘Commission’ is also completely wrong in terms of meaning, and nowhere is it more important that words are used according to their precise meaning than in the current dangerous scenario.

English has long had a word for illicit payments taken by those who shouldn’t take them, and made by those who shouldn’t make them: KICKBACKS. It’s time the political class and my colleagues in journalism began using it.

There is no question about kickbacks. They are not legal. Commission, on the other hand, is a legal payment.

The Opposition should also stop using the words ‘bribery’ and ‘tixħim’. The crime of bribery is very specific in Maltese law: it is a payment made to somebody to persuade them to do something they shouldn’t. And, weirdly, you have to give the payment before and not afterwards.

If you give the payment afterwards then it does not constitute bribery. I don’t believe the law has been amended to make payments after the act a crime too.

The money Brian Tonna paid to Keith Schembri via their SECRET accounts at Pilatus Bank – for they were secret then – is a classic, textbook kickback. I get the payment for referral fees from Russians thanks to your making me a registered agent and directing those Russians my way, and I kick back part of the fees to you.

This distinction has got to be made for the sake of national sanity. These things have to be explained, and it is Opposition politicians and the press which should be explaining them. Because in the sea of confusion, the lying sharks in the Office of the Prime Minister are doing what they are best at after thieving: playing with words and on people’s ignorance about these matters.

The Prime Minister’s chief of staff has already issued a statement – through the Department of Information – saying that he never took bribes. He wrote the same on Facebook. Technically, verbally and legally, he is completely correct. The money he received from Brian Tonna was not a bribe. Tonna does not pay Schembri bribes to persuade him to do things; they cooperate willingly and are in it together. That money was a KICKBACK.

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