From Mr S. Sammut

Whenever my better half decides that our house needs a makeover or a facelift we do not rush to Joe Chetcuti’s Arani Issa – Trid Tara biex Temmen TV programme, nor do we go collecting money and donations from our well meaning neighbours. We have to fork out the money ourselves and make do without those little extras for quite some time after: no weekend breaks, no dining out, let alone a holiday abroad.

I just wonder how the ruling Nationalist Party manages to find substantial sums of money to demolish and rebuild a state-of-the-art Party Headquarters, hold the costly Independence celebrations (expensive hiring of sound and lighting systems; hiring all those singers and so on…) and now managing to find more and more funds to sustain the forthcoming general election campaign (glossy, expensive full colour brochures, hiring of a substantial number of billboards all over the island and so on). It is high time they, and the other major political party, publish their financial accounts. I do not doubt that once elected Labour will find its coffers spilling over with funds and donations from the same construction magnates as well. For the sake of transparency, accountability, fairness and correct political practice, please do publish your financial accounts and see to it that you hurriedly legislate the law, which regulates and controls political funding.

Otherwise, no one will blame all those, yours truly included, who are filled with justified suspicions about direct tendering of mega projects and the overruns they often end up with over and over again.

Saviour Sammut

SAFI