Barely a week after Mepa and the OPM Permanent Secretary blamed each another in front of the ad hoc Parliamentary Committee on the black dust issue for the delay in publishing Professor Vella’s report in a timely manner, we have now had none other than Minister Austin Gatt – the man who is succeeding brilliantly to hog the headlines in his last few months in office before retiring from Parliament – pointing an accusing finger at his own government to cleanse the Dubai guys of SmartCity for falling behind schedule regarding job creation.

A week ago, we had the Prime Minister admitting that the black dust problem was evidently coming from the creaky Marsa power station when, only months ago, he had stated in the House that there was no room for any further studies on the issue since there were no recent traces of black dust. From case closed to case reopened.

Last week, the Mepa chairman confirmed that Mepa had made its own the conclusions of Prof. Vella that pointed an accusing finger at Marsa power station, while only months ago the former Mepa Environment Director had claimed that the root cause of the problem in Fgura was mainly traffic-related.

Last Friday, many Maltese readers were stunned to learn that, according to Minister Gatt, one should blame it on US – for which read the Gonzi government – rather than on SmartCity. He spoke at length about government’s failure to honour its side of the deal with the Dubai guys. While insisting that the project was “ahead of schedule”, he stated that the delay in job creation was due to government having not yet fulfilled its obligations to demolish the Wied Ghammieq sewage pumping station on the site, while the WSC was still awaiting planning permits to demolish it.

As if this circus was not enough, we then had a revelation by Nationalist MP Pullicino Orlando – confirming the obvious – that he had allegedly been instructed by Malta’s Permanent Representative to the EU and the PN’s former General Secretary to “chase after Alfred Sant” in a bid to counter the embarrassing revelations from the Mistra scandal that the PL leader had unearthed in the run up to the 2008 general election.

JPO actually went on to declare that, when it came to the BA press conference, he actually had people coaching him beforehand, telling him exactly what to say, as well as that, in the first article he wrote to pre-empt the issue; he had by his own admission, used a ghost writer.

He stunningly revealed – or, to be politically correct, claimed – that Sant’s psychological profile had been studied intensely by the PN to predict how he would react.

During the same week, we had Nationalist MP Beppe Fenech Adami admitting that the increase in honoraria for government ministers had been handled in the worst possible way while also criticising the manner in which the public got to know about the increase.

No wonder he was quoted as having said that the honoraria saga started off on the wrong foot to the extent that it was “too difficult to explain it to the people”.

Even though Austin Gatt chose to treat as case closed the incident that took place at the University of Malta with a student of whom I had never ever heard on the Arriva busses (dis)service, it was mind-boggling indeed to hear him distance himself from Arriva’s shortcomings and its customer care department, when during the launch it was very hard to tell who would be actually running the show – particularly since it became increasingly evident that the new botched routes were Transport Malta’s doing rather than that of the operator, regardless of who may have won the tender in question.

When launching the Arriva bus service, and speaking amid considerable fanfare during the inauguration of the highly touted public transport system to be operated by them, apart from launching a tirade against dissenting drivers who had protested earlier about changes in work shifts and rosters, he had promised that: “As from tomorrow, a new service with new conditions will start!”

His confrontational speech was reported to have replaced a previously embargoed address that had to be rewritten due to the changed scenario.

With JPO’s recent statement, Castaldi Paris’ damning statements on the PN and their meddling in his operational activities as well as the Engerer switch to the PL, one can easily understand why the PN Government are finding Libya such a convenient scapegoat to try and deflect attention from the local messy situation.

On the Garrett saga at University, many are already trying to figure out who will or could be punished for this embarrassing situation. Let us hope that she will not have a hard time with certain Uni big heads and that predictions that she may end up underemployed for as long as the PN are in power prove to be incorrect. As for the newspaper reporter who splashed the story, others are betting that he could soon get the axe too.

The KSU tried to reassure us that they have prepared a 95-page study or report on the Arriva Bus Service. What are they waiting for regarding publishing it after all these months, and what conclusions does it draw? Does it point an accusing finger at government or will it merely serve as a whitewashing exercise?

As for the would-be axing of the journalist in question, whether this happens or not is sheer speculation, but I can tell more than a story or two as to how, months ago, a particular Minister had lambasted the directors and newsroom of an independent newspaper – not the Independent – when a daring female journalist exposed certain shameful behaviour in the running of departments that fell under his brief.

The other day, a former Nationalist Minister who, to the best of my knowledge, was never in the line of a fire of a particular prolific journalist and blogger who seems to be all over the place, described this person to me as a “hired gun”.

Well, to be fair to the journalist involved, I think it would be unfair to single this person out: we have more than our fair share of hired guns and smoking guns!

Last Friday, many were stunned to learn at how wannabe anchormen came to the rescue on PBS of the TVM helmsmen – its CEO and Head of News – while also denigrating and dismissing as irrelevant a l-orizzont article that revealed, through the reply to a parliamentary question, that Fr Joe Borg netted some €100,000 in consultancy fees from PBS over a four-year period.

Just before signing off this article, I received an email from an apolitical friend who told me that he could not believe his eyes, reading what Minister Gatt had to say on Friday.

What worried him most was how come this Minister felt so “comfortable” putting the blame on his own government and its institutions and actually does not seem to be really bothered by doing so. This happens to be the same Minister who boasts of sleeping comfortably at night.

His actions have been best defined as an inexcusable self castration exercise – unless there is an even darker side to the whole plot.

Meanwhile bring on Bani Walid. Who better than a brave, daring and courageous peripatetic TVM anchorman posing as a CNN “breaking news” journalist, to provide the right diversionary tactics to keep our minds off the imploding situation on our shores.

This is just a sampling of pleasures yet to come! Meanwhile, all those who were hoping that details would be revealed about the contractual agreement between PBS and Where’s Everybody must be disappointed. The same fate awaited me in Parliament when I queried the details of the Microsoft agreement with the Maltese government.

Citing commercial considerations is so, so convenient.

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