Not Too Soon For Christmas

Maltastar

 

Christmas can’t come too soon this year. The hypocrisy we are enduring throughout this sacred month of December 2002 is nearly unbearable.

I just cite two cases.

Bank of Valletta (BoV) have opened up an internal investigation to trace the leak of an internal document presented in parliament by Leo Brincat giving a detailed position of the Bank's credit exposures covered by government guarantee. The police have been called in to investigate the same case.

The minister has not denied one comma of the facts presented including the fact that he purposely misled parliament when in his budget speech he said that it is government's policy not to issue such guarantees. Labour proved the contrary. Labouralso proved that the budget deficit figures are being fudged by financing social capital expenditure off budget through bank guarantees for loans from the banking system.

Rather than argue or defend the case, not quite easy to do admittedly, the government, in dictatorial style, is trying to see how this information, that should be freely in public domain, has leaked the secrecy veil that protects the government from exposing some of the truth about the disastrous state of public finance.

These are things suitable for Saddam's regime and should never be allowed to happen in supposedly democratic Malta.

“How can BoV remain passive in a case where fraud of several millions was suspected and then call in the police for leakage of information that should be publicly available”

BoV had every reason to call in the police to investigate the semblance of gross irregularities in building extremely adventurous exposure in the Daewoo case that has cost the Bank several millions.

It mysteriously failed to do so and found support also from the central bank who thus became passive participants in a potentially huge fraud scandal.

How can BoV remain passive in a case where fraud of several millions was suspected and then call in the police for leakage of information that should be publicly available.

Or should the public not know what contingent obligations, with real prospects for being converted into real liabilities, the government is undertaking in its name?

Christmas can't come too soon to give us brief reprieve from the hypocrisy of the lapdog local press in depicting the financial package negotiated for EU membership as some great victory of celebratory proportions.

I will not repeat on this blessed night the figures which prove that for all or any reasons that may exist for joining the EU, funding is certainly not one of them.

But I cannot but feel offended that we are in a perverse situation where government incompetence and mismanagement of the country has become the strongest reason why EU membership is appealing to serious people who think that this country has been damaged beyond our own internal capacity to repair.

I feel offended that at a time when the country is going to the dogs we give a free holiday to the PN government from the responsibility to answer for its non-performance and continue to discuss whether it is Lm26 million, Lm8 million or pretty close to nothing at all.

May Christmas bring some sense to those who still believe that Malta can manage its own affairs in the primary interests of its citizens and realize that Labour's team has the will and ability to raise the country from the financial ruins it has been driven into.

That Labour has the vision to turn it into a modern state that will integrate economically with the EU at a steady but respectful pace without sacrificing the right to politically manage our domestic affairs and foreign relations in the best interest of the Maltese.

Merry Christmas to all!