It makes one almost incredulous reading about, and following, the case of the highly organised Mafia-like corruption ring operating in Malta.

Its tentacles are spread widely and broadly throughout the high echelons of government employees responsible for awarding and contracting fuel supplies and run into hundreds of millions of euros in value.

It is, to say the very least, utterly obscene and scandalous that such an organised network of corruption could exist locally to plague and dirty the island without being traced and immediately eradicated or heavily punished by long-term prison sentences (even for life) and huge fines far in excess of the bribes those involved had received.

Ours is truly an island of bribes and corruption – starting from the lowliest employee and going right up to the putrefied head – all of them intent on inflating their pockets with the stinking money of corruption and greed.

It is surely the joint responsibility of government and the Opposition to initiate and conduct a credible crusade to crush and effectively defeat the corruption, greed and lawlessness afflicting a number of government departments and authorities.

The corrupt head of those responsible should roll mercilessly and be hung up for public viewing and example in the most prominent places and news media of the island.

We should start afresh by encouraging an honest, dedicated and trustworthy new breed of employee who should be thoroughly screened and assessed to ensure that he or she has proved always free of sleaze and dirt and upright in all their public dealings.

We cannot afford for a small, resource-limited island like ours to be a realm of dirty corrupt officialdom – an officialdom the sole aim of which is to be served and loaded with filthy money stolen, not only stealthily but sometimes openly, from honest citizens and the needy and which is the only God they recognise and worship for their protection when pursuing their quarry.

Edwin Calleja

BALZAN