Time for damage control

So, yesterday, Prime Minister Robert Abela forced his MPs (who obliged willingly) to vote against a motion for a public inquiry on Jean-Paul Sofia’s death. Following the vote, the Prime Minister went to a concert at the Girgenti Palace funded by the taxpayer.

On the following morning, Robert Abela gave a 45-minute long interview to MaltaToday’s editor Kurt Sansone – an obvious choice for the Prime Minister to conduct a friendly interview with a friendly newspaper. The interview was made on friendly terms and the Prime Minister was not pressed with questions – instead, he was allowed to coax up his lies to the public without being properly challenged.

This wouldn’t have been the case if the Prime Minister would have been interviewed by Caroline Muscat of The Shift. There is a clear division in Malta’s press industry where those who are increasingly dependent on government funds like MaltaToday are increasingly taking a pro-government line as can be evidenced by their editorials that project the Prime Minister as someone who could be appealed to, on friendly terms, to change the country in good-will. The situation in the country is very different from what MaltaToday is trying to project because the Prime Minister has no goodwill and only understands the language of political power. MaltaToday is trying to depict the Prime Minister as someone who can be reasoned with and potentially even convinced of changing his mind. This is also not the case. I cover the Prime Minister on a regular basis on this website and readers would understand the reasons why I am writing this. However, allow me to refer to the interview which is full of despicable lies. Unfortunately, Kurt Sansone didn’t put up a challenge to the Prime Minister.

1. The Public Inquiry has no executive power so it’s useless.

This is an argument made by someone who doesn’t even understand the basics of his job, but in reality, he does understand it, only that he is nefarious and a despicable liar. Of course, the public inquiry doesn’t have any executive functions because it is self-explanatory: it is a public inquiry. The executive would then use the public inquiry to act and take executive actions based on the results of the public inquiry. This is called governance and the British colonial government and the the Maltese government that followed have been doing this for over two centuries before this dumbass came along.

2. If we launch a public inquiry, we would create a precedent and launch a public inquiry on other criminal cases 

No, it doesn’t because this case involves government property handed out by a government agency so it is in the interest of the government to hold a public inquiry. The government does not need to hold a public inquiry on the murder of Pelin Kaya because, at face value, the state was not involved in her murder. Lies, and more lies.

3. I will publish the magisterial inquiry and that is how I will bring justice.

No, that’s not how justice will be made and I doubt whether the magisterial inquiry can be published by the Prime Minister as it would be at the discretion of the magistrate. The magisterial inquiry will establish criminal activity, yet it will not delve into the mechanics of bureaucracy and the government’s responsibility in this event. In fact, the public inquiry into the murder of Daphne Caruana Galizia proves my point and indeed, the Prime Minister refused to take any action following the public inquiry.

4. I feel sorry for the parents and I intend to make sure that full justice is being made

The Prime Minister is doing nothing so that justice is done, on the contrary, he is covering up for his friend and chief of LANDS Robert Vella. Robert Vella should have resigned from his post the day it was announced Jean Paul Sofia was dead, instead, Robert Vella remained chief of LANDS giving him enough time to cover up evidence of his wrongdoing, especially in the act of handing out a government property to a shady criminal who was also his own employee at the same government department.

5. Justice depends on the magistrate and the problem is that she is taking too long

There were many things that the government would have done to protect the rights of workers – this is after, all, supposedly, a Labour Party. For starters, the government would have looked into how a building would have collapsed on its own property. This is not a matter that relates strictly to a criminal investigation – it is a government matter. Secondly, and in principle, there is something seriously wrong in the country with the constant construction workers’ deaths and reports of other victims of the construction industry. The Daphne Foundation also published a report about this matter – something that the Labour Party would have done itself had it still remained true to its social-democratic principles.

6. Justice was done with Miriam Pace and it will be done again

Justice with Miriam Pace was not done. The architect involved in the death of Miriam Pace was fined and punished with community service, while the contractor who killed her still until this day, receives public contracts from the government.

7. The Opposition and government critics exploiting this case for their advantage

This half-man, half-demented child is sick and sociopathic. What do we gain from this? We are wasting our time fighting for the death of a construction worker in the hands of criminal contractors, and the Prime Minister accuses his critics of relishing this moment. The man is completely insensitive and out of his mind. We are not happy that these things are tasking place in our country: we are bloody furious.