The last thing I want to do is make things unnecessarily difficult for Foreign Minister Michael Frendo when he happens to be entering the last few laps of his campaign for the post of Commonwealth Secretary General.

Particularly when, as your newspaper faithfully reported me as having said a couple of days ago, both the MLP and I personally make no bones of the fact that we support his bid for this post because we believe he fits the vacancy and that it would also bring prestige for Malta as a whole.

But on the other hand this does not mean that we should fail our duties and responsibilities by keeping mum in the interim period.

It was very unfair of him or his ministry to claim that while he was busy promoting Malta’s foreign policy objectives overseas I had decided to persist in asking banal questions to push forward our partisan agenda, thus betraying our lack of preparedness (says he!!) to take over government.

Had he replied to my questions raised during the 7 September media conference I would not have pressed my point any further. But now that his ministry has chosen to merely come up with wishy-washy replies I feel duty bound to remind readers that in spite of his allegations that I am trying to create a detective story where none exist as well as fomenting “some conspiracy theories that are ludicrous and quite pathetic”, the most delicate and sensitive questions that I asked have remained unanswered:

Primarily these are:

• a confirmation that no Voice of the Mediterranean sophisticated equipment has gone missing since the Auditor General Report was drawn up;

• A confirmation or denial whether the company Valley View Development is right in claiming that it is unable to pay its contractors for work carried out for Voice of the Mediterranean because they are still owed funds by this now defunct radio station;

• Whether anyone in high places (not necessarily the minister himself) can give us a firm reply as to whether highly placed officials from the President of the Republic downwards knew of the Richard Muscat saga before it made the front pages of the Irish newspapers;

• Whether Minister Frendo had been ‘asked’ to change his mind due to alleged pressures from above when he had apparently been reluctant to reconfirm Mr Muscat in his post as Ambassador so much so that at one stage he was reported to have even been considering someone else – among his FO staff – to replace him;

• What is holding the minister back from publishing the President’s letter to the Libyan leader (contents of which the minister himself discussed in Libya) as well as the full text of the Maltese Ambassador’s address to the US President George W Bush when presenting his credentials at the White House.

The minister claimed that I am naïve to expect him to declare publicly which countries he has visited as part of his lobbying efforts for the prestigious Commonwealth post. He will pardon me in replying that if anybody is naïve it is the minister himself, particularly if he genuinely believes that by refraining from issuing a media release this matter remained a secret. Most diplomats resident in Malta and Commonwealth country ambassadors accredited to Malta but resident overseas know quite well where the minister went, who he met and what the purpose was of his African lobbying travels.

On the Central Medit-

erranean Economic Forum the minister need not get steamed up unnecessarily. He knows we support the initiative. All we are asking is for an indication of the level of support that his initiative enjoys in the countries that he is targeting: mainly Italy, Libya and Tunisia.

Regarding his request to meet the Foreign and European Affairs Committee meeting at the earliest opportunity to discuss his visits as well as the Kosovo issue (as he seems to have stated on his ministry website) he knows as I have already reassured the Committee Chairman that I accept readily. So much so that in my media release of 11 September I had stated that “I would like to reassure the minister that I intend to attend any briefing meetings that he may decide to organise or address on foreign affairs issues.”

All this explains why my persistent relevant questions cannot be considered as being banalities – as the minister or his ministry erroneously claimed in certain sections of the media.

Media frenzy

I have much sympathy for media people. They have a tough job to do and the majority of them do it well. With the cut-throat competition that exists between the ever burgeoning number of newspapers on the island one can also understand their eagerness to ferret out new stories or else to give new slants to on running issues.

But sometimes some of them – who might have all of the best intentions in the world – really make you blow a fuse.

One of them has a penchant for sending e-mail questions and giving you the shortest of deadlines to reply simply because he needs to got to print within the hour. Regardless of whether you might have read his e-mail or not by then.

Another one rings you up, asking you to tip him off what your press conference happens to be all about as well as whether it concerns a specific subject that he mentions. When I reply that this was asking a bit too much, he hits back by not turning up for the conference and not even bothering to cover a media release we issued later. Obviously the choice is his and I in no way intend to exercise undue influence on editorial control, which remains the newspapers’ prerogative. Whichever the newspaper might be.

Things assume a murkier tinge when the same newspapers who in the past, during the term of office of a Labour administration, used to seek Opposition views on certain issues and give them even more prominence than those of the government of the day, have now adopted a completely different stance.

So much so that if the MLP issues a statement they tend to ignore most of its substance, carry only that particular item to which the government chooses to reply and to add insult to injury, they then go on to lead their report with the government’s counter-statement rather than the original statement made by the MLP.

But the cherry on the cake undoubtedly goes to that particular newspaper which, although often speaking on or from a high moral ground, tends to forget the thrust of its editorial lines and journalistic pressures the moment the party under fire decides to buy advertising space in their newspapers.

e-mail: [email protected]

Leo Brincat is opposition spokesman for foreign affairs and IT