The recent discovery by the Maltese public that db Group had given money to the PN seems to have left people wondering. I am sure that db has given money to the other party too as attested by the Prime Minister and as most companies in Malta do. If anyone thinks that businesses do not pay money into the coffers of political parties then they must be living on the moon. Of course this is not the only place that money comes from; it comes from public donations as well as for services rendered. Election campaigns, television stations, radios, printing presses and others which help a party carry its image to the public cost a lot of money. It is not that money is the most important thing in politics but usually without money one can do very little or nothing at all. We all know that the Labour party receives donations from many sources too and, going by what the ex-Deputy Leader, now Speaker, of the PL had said prior to the last general election it seems that many goings and comings took place on the fourth floor of the Labour Party's HQ. Who is to say that it does not still take place now? Could the owners of db have been among them? It would not surprise me at all if they were.
This is not the point of my article at all. What I think that many people may be missing in the smokescreen going up now, is that the PN leadership has not allowed itself to be held hostage by one of its financial donors or contractors. It has chosen the common good and interest and has come out against the way that public land is given up for development for peanuts. DB group is saying that the land over the former ITS site on the Golden Mile in St. George's was professionally appraised to be worth 15 million Euro. Now I am not a developer, neither am I an architect nor am I a dope, but if that is the real worth of that tract of land, I would eat my hat with pepper and salt. Everybody has eyes to see except it seems the government in power!
The PN has come out against the way that this land has been appraised and it did well. Its deputy leader resigned from legal advisor of DB group as he had every right to be, due to a present conflict of interest and that is the correct approach! What exactly is the public waiting to see from their MPs who also have to work for a living? MPs have to work for their living as the Parliamentary allowance is very low. It is high time that our MPs are all paid well to be able to earn their living from their parliamentary work and let go their work while they are MP's in order to avoid this kind of tension. Labour MPs are all paid handsomely as besides their Parliamentary allowances many of them have been appointed on government boards, some rather suspicious, and they are being paid thousands apart from their MP honoraria!
It is to the virtuous merit of the Leader of the Opposition that notwithstanding the financial donations by db Group, he took the virtuous road and said what needed to be said. He showed that he was not bought off by anyone or anybody! The same could be said of Mario de Marco who notwithstanding loss of income, decided to forfeit his consultancy work in order to be able to have a position against the sale price of the land. This is analogous to Beppe Fenech Adami allowing himself to be interviewed by an investigating commission of the European Parliament but a public servant Keith Schembri working in the Office of the Prime Minister, chose not to!
The reality is that the leaders of the PN on all counts have exhibited virtuous behaviour, but the same cannot be said for the Labour Party in government that is mired in sleaze and chooses vice over virtue.
Everyone is fed up with the way the country is being governed, with all the secrecy and lack of virtuous action where it is merited and people seeking to become rich overnight, and people with very doubtful skills at that. What we need to do is seek to establish a government which is honest in outlook and whose only interest is justice and the common good. We need to establish virtue theory in government that seeks to do good in all fields - in finances, the economy, social justice, education, health (my patients have been waiting for their Fluticasone Inhaler for asthma for three weeks already as it is out of stock). By their actions the PN leaders have shown they really have the environment and our natural resources at heart otherwise they would have let the whole thing go without comment! Now because they have had the courage to speak up, they are threatened by the developer and a government intent on smokescreens. This used to be Labour's approach in the 1970s and 1980s when smokescreens galore were levelled at the PN such as the supposed discovery of "arms" at PN headquarters! These smokescreens even included real smoke such as tear gas!
The Labour Party has to stop toying with us and turn a new leaf or get out of the way so that others can lead the country in the right direction. They seem to take everyone for fools. Their spin is so obvious that it is very easy to see. They are the party in government now! They have to ensure that national resources are well used! They have to show us that this is not another job for the boys. The Malta Developer's Association and the Malta Hotels and Catering Association have flagged the project! So please cut the crepe and come clean on this issue. Let us please have a proper public valuation of the land in question so the developer can pay his due; or is there something Labour in government owes them?
Abraham Lincoln said that if one wants to gauge the personality of any individual, one need only give him or her a little power! Virtue in Aristotle's definition is some action we carry out that leads us to do good. Vice is that action which leads us to do evil. Virtue repeated several times as a habit, leads us to become virtuous and habitually good persons. Vice repeated several times as a habit leads persons to become bad and habitually vicious! I can see the effort to do good on the PN's side; please show me the effort to do good on Labour's side! Is not putting out smokescreens as a Labour government in a vicious collusion with a private company for a project that robs the public of its rightful dues a pathetic attempt at confusing minds? Is it one more attempt at vice which adds up to all the other previous vicious attempts by Joseph Muscat's government? As the general election approaches, we should not be surprised to see many more of these scenarios unfolding, scenarios meant to keep the present government where it is now, seemingly a textbook case of feathering its bed with our hard-earned feathers! Is this government practising repetitive, habitually vicious behaviour? If so, it is a bad government that needs to be done away with! We become the choices we repetitively make in life and in politics! Repetitive bad choices in government forms a bad government and bad governments need to go!