Silvio Grixti has recently been extremely flustered by the fact that he is the odd one out among politicians, as he has been prosecuted. He has been mentioning the curious case of Nationalist MP Stephen Spiteri who was caught giving out medical certificates for sick leave in a fraudulent manner.
Silvio Grixti is assuming that there has been a conspiracy by the Labour government to protect Stephen Spiteri from prosecution and he may very well be right. For more than a year between 2019 and 2020, Stephen Spiteri was a Nationalist Party mole who used to provide Keith Schembri with extended information on the inner ongoings of the Nationalist Party and the PN Parliamentary group. However, this is unrelated to the fact that Stephen Spiteri was never prosecuted.
Stephen Spiteri was never prosecuted nor investigated by the police because politicians getting away with it and enjoying impunity is the rule and the norm and Silvio Grixti is an exception. Silvio Grixti is being investigated by the police with all the Police’s Financial Crimes Unit concentrated on the social-benefits racket because this case was referred to the police by the OPM itself with Robert Abela consciously doing so knowing he was not involved in it and would only come to bite back at Silvio Grixti, who was back then in an opposing Labour faction to the Prime Minister’s. Other Ministers involved in the social-benefits racket like Michael Falzon and Owen Bonnici are being allowed to get away with it by the police, and so are some of Robert Abela’s minions. Nothing is a coincidence, of course.
Those responsible to ensure that there are checks and balances in place to prevent such fraud from occuring failed miserably and delibertely. Accountability rests squarely in Dr Michael Falzon’s and Mr Mousu’s laps. Of course Mousu was busy putting the final touch to the process that now grants him and the other perm. secs. the full two thirds pension when they retire. Social security Dept. had ample opportunity to nip this fraud in the bud but opted to turn a blind eye as Labour was gaining from this illict practise. This is the way politicians operate in Malta. A lot of people were aware of what was happening all the way to the OPM’s customer support unit. The fact that nobody chided or interfered to stop this racket encouraged Dr Grixti and all concerned to proceed with this fraud. Dr Grixti was immature enough to persist as he felt secure that the impunity enjoyed by others in the labour camp and the opposition would protect him as well. Eventually when the proverbial cat was let out of the bag he was transformed into Labour’s sacrificial lamb.
What really jars is that instead of insisting that Stephen Spiteri faces justice as he should, Silvio Grixti is complaining that PL impunity isn’t extended to him too.. spineless!