From Mr E. Fenech

Jesmond Saliba, Communications Coordinator for Minister Austin Gatt, does not know me. If he did, when writing to this newspaper (Smarter than Lehmans, TMIS, 28 May), he would not have opted to waste so much of his tax-funded time to try and convince me that the price of Lm1.55,4 was right, by repeating incessantly what government’s consultants recommended.

Like I have said before, no consultant has any claim to infallibility, which is why Lehman Bros and every other consultant on the planet will never be able to give any one of their clients an indemnity on their advice on business valuation. Share valuation is more of an art than a science. I know because I happen to make a living out of it.

What perhaps has frustrated Mr Saliba is that subsequent to Alternattiva’s press conference in which we criticised the share price achieved (but not the privatisation process or the buyer), leading economic columnists like Lino Spiteri, Alfred Mifsud and John Borg Bartolo all published opinions that, similar to ours, claimed that the price was, to some extent, discounted. Why doesn’t he challenge them?

As for Mr Saliba’s hideous claim that the Greens have adopted an “extreme-right libertarian economic policy”, I have no comment, but a question. If his twisted accusation were true, wouldn’t it be an extreme example of the tiniest of kettles calling the largest of pots black?

Edward Fenech

Spokesperson – Finance and the Economy

Alternattiva Demokratika – The Green Party