It’s great to see Nationalist Party MPs doing some opposition work, given that the Nationalist Party seems to be dead and its MPs on permanent holiday. Julie Zahra, a newly elected PN MP is taking the Culture Minister to task over the reckless spending at Heritage Malta. Heritage Malta is being accused of constant misuse of funds to appease friends and Labour Party donors.
Owen Bonnici, the current Culture Minister, was Culture and Justice Minister under Joseph Muscat and covered up for Joseph Muscat, Keith Schembri, Konrad Mizzi and Brian Tonna by making sure that his compliant attorney-general, Peter Grech, doesn’t prosecute while also hampering police investigations.
Owen Bonnici spent his ministerial career forking out undisclosed amounts of public money to produce political adverts for himself. The Standards Commissioner had also slammed the practice of government ministers using public funds to create political propaganda, but of course, Labour doesn’t give a damn about the institutions. Our public money is their own private purse.
Basically, the Culture Ministry is a Labour fiefdom where funds are used for partisan purposes, corruption, nepotism and for direct political purposes. For every public initiative by the entities of the Culture Ministry, Owen Bonnici will fork out an undisclosed amount of public funds to produce a propaganda video where he is involved, meeting people and making speeches.
Nothing is sacred, even the National Library’s reading room which has become an event space for politicians and Owen Bonnici to hold press conferences and events.
Meanwhile, while the government raids the culture ministry, it is the culture industry which suffers. It suffers as the free market is hampered in favour of the friends of the government, our heritage and culture institutions lose their power to act independently, and a culture of rent-seeking, corruption and nepotism is fostered amongst artists. It’s a perfect set-up for a corrupt and trashy government.
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