"Taxpayers shouldn't fund political parties," Robert Abela told Alex Borg, the newly elected leader of the PN. "I'm surprised by the opposition leader's stance...which was... to fix his party's financial state by using our taxes," Abela told reporters.
Abela is dead set against any formal arrangements for state funding of political parties. His party doesn't need any such arrangements. Labour has been looting the state to fund its partisan political activities for years. It gets all the help it needs from taxpayers' money. Abela is determined to keep it that way. The status quo is a massive boost for his party and ensures that the Opposition party is kept on the back foot, grossly disadvantaged and deeply in debt.
Labour has a massive army of party loyalists and activists doing work for the party while being paid from the state. The most notable recent addition to that regiment of taxpayer funded party activists is Neville Gafa. He is the customer care coordinator at Abela's OPM - but he's also "Labour's weapon in Gozo". Like him Labour has an ever increasing number of so-called "customer care officers" within every ministry. Everybody knows what they do. Everybody knows what they're there for. Their job is to make sure that constituents of ministers and Labour MPs who seek help through their party clubs or constituent offices get whatever they want - whether merited or not. Labour has set up a feudal system of patronage manned by taxpayer funded "customer care officers" who provide constituents with state-funded perks, deserved or undeserved.
Robert Abela made his position clear about customer care officers when the driving licence scandal broke. He told the nation that Ian Borg was just doing his job when he communicated with "civil servants" to pass on personal details of specific individuals he wanted advantageous treatment - whether that was expedited driving tests or even help with passing their test. Abela even encouraged customer care officers to do more of that hard work of accommodating the illegitimate (if not illegal) demands of their constituents.
Labour has been using state funds to award direct orders and contracts to the tune of millions of euro to those very companies that provide the Labour party with key services. Transport Malta, during Ian Borg's time, gave TEC 20 direct orders worth 424,000 euro in one single day. And that was for a fictitious plan for the "Malta metro". More recently TEC Ltd was awarded a direct order of 80,000 euro which was spent on food and alcohol for a two-hour party for the launch of MICAS, the Malta International Contemporary Art Centre in Floriana.
TEC Ltd was given plenty more contracts. 511,000 euro in direct orders included "various maintenance works" at Castille. It earned 355,000euro for the Commonwealth heads of government summit alone. TEC Ltd was given 67,000 euro for "various maintenance works" at the CHOGM Task Force office. It was paid 57,000 euro for setting up a marquee at Hagar Qim for a dinner party. It was given another direct order to set up press facilities at Fort St Elmo during the Valletta migration summit. It got another 135,000 euro of taxpayer money for "Carnival Activities", 58,000 euro of which were by direct order. It was awarded a 121,000 euro direct order to provide "a backstage compound for the Junior Eurovision festival". It's been awarded 20,000 euro for "various works" related to the Gvern li Jisma events plus thousands more for OPM press conferences.
And that's only one example. Matthew Bongailas "a proud member of Prime Minister Robert Abela's team" received 15 direct orders worth almost 2 million euro from Infrastructure Malta in just a few months. His company, Bongailas Construction, was only registered the previous year.
That pales into insignificance compared to the hundreds of millions that Bonnici Brothers have been awarded. Gilbert Bonnici, one of the directors at Bonnici Brothers, was Robert Abela's business partner on a development project in Iklin that earned the Prime Minister hundreds of thousands of euro. Labour's funder Joseph Portelli has benefitted handsomely from Labour's generosity with our land and taxes. So have other Labour donors like the Zammit Tabonas. Anton Camilleri, tal-Franciz and Silvio Debono of db Group have also been the beneficiaries of favourable government decisions worth millions.
Labour has benefitted handsomely from its own decisions. The classical example was Labour government's decision to drop a Lands Department case against the Labour Party over the Australia Hall property in Pembroke, effectively giving the party a 10 million euro gift. That jobless scheme is nothing more than a "jobs-for-votes" scheme.
Labour has passed hundreds of millions of taxpayers' money to the General Workers Union buying its continued support and its kids gloves approach with Labour over workers' rights and conditions. The GWU was awarded a 109 million euro contract to manage the Community Workers Scheme making substantial profits for its consortium, CWS Consort.
Abela needs no new arrangements for state funding of political parties. He's happy as things are. He has freehand in directing public funds to Labour's donors and supporters. Why would he let the Opposition party benefit?
When Robert Abela was asked a direct question about whether he thinks party financing should be more transparent, he deflected and refused to answer. When reporters asked him whether he supports arrangements for all party donors to be named, he insisted that the Labour Party's financial reports are transparent enough.
Robert Abela and his party have been looting the state to fund their party. "We will disagree on the issue of the funding of political parties," Abela told Alex Borg during a meeting at Labour's Headquarters. Of course they will. Abela has an open cheque book to tap taxpayers' funds at will to fund his party. He knows exactly how precious those taxpayer millions are for his party. He understands that using those resources ensures absolute control of power. He's never going to agree to lend the same credit to the Opposition.