The daily revelations on Malta’s criminal groups that are connected directly or indirectly with Prime Minister Robert Abela are taking place in a backdrop of a deep crisis in Malta’s police force. Angelo Gafa has so far, been perfect in pulling off a respectable face in front of critics and the press, however, he has gone so far. The rest of his legacy is marred by total impunity to criminal groups covered by politicians and politicians themselves. The title of Mafia State still lingers on with his name stamped on the seat of executive power. So who is protecting us? If criminal groups can get away with it so easily by making dumb deals with politicians, and the police are corrupt and dysfunctional, who remains in the executive who will protect citizens from these criminal groups? The Attorney-General is known to be corrupt as well. No one in the executive institutions seems to want to pick a fight against organised crime. So, it seems that organised crime has won very easily.
We even lack a deep discussion on the justice system and its executive branches, or rather, the discussions and the voluminous reports produced in response to the murder of Daphne Caruana Galizia have been shelved. Instead, the Prime Minister is busy trying to deploy an authoritarian press reform which would create a military committee run by all the corrupt members of the executive branches of justice and the government system to spy and clamp down on journalists. You can easily fire critics and deploy your corrupt allies in the justice system if you are in government, but you can’t buy everyone, so the press remains the last pair of eyes that can watch the chaos.
It is remarkable, to say the least, how Labour has exacerbated the rule of law crisis since 2019 to the extent of turning it into a total joke. Not only impunity has increased, but the police force has been further dismantled in numbers along with a series of high-profile resignations. Meanwhile, the directorate-general at the Ministry of Interior is pressing Angelo Gafa to put more police officers in local police stations to keep up with the daily complaints and reports. Everyone is looking for the police but they seem to be a rare breed in this jungle. Angelo Gafa can’t get any recruits and resources he says. I wonder why. I wonder why there are government directors who complain that despite the government being over-staffed and over-financed, they claim and complain that they can’t find resources.
Let me put it this way. In very simple terms. The government is the biggest, richest and most resourceful entity in the country. It’s basically a machine which prints money by issuing debt in a market that can practically produce an infinite amount of money. At the same time, the government can call up, as many people as it wants under its employ. So, if you are a director or an executive who works with the government and claim that you can’t do your job because you can’t find resources, you’ve got to be pretty bloody stupid. Or else, it’s a blatant excuse for corruption.
Some may have the impression that the government creates resources out of nothing, and it does, but the point is to create it and exploit it, that’s why an executive is supposed to know how to manage and handle resources. There is no magic about it and it’s a question of work and knowledge. In this particular situation, there is no work and knowledge and Labour is waiting for the magic to happen: that suddenly and somehow society finds it acceptable that Labour is a criminal organisation. It will never happen, so once again, there is going to be someone who will be very disappointed: ask Rosianne Cutajar about it and others as well. The Minister of Interior, Byron Camilleri is totally disengaged with reality and in press conferences, he harps inanities on the Nationalist Party and some other stupidities. The Minister of Justice is even worse: Jonathan Attard is part of the clique of Super ONE idiots with Charlon Gouder, today a corrupt fixer for the tuna lobby and Joseph Muscat’s lawyer. They will speak well of the Labour Party even if it kills their mother while they get rich doing it.
We all know how this ends. Labour is going to move and shuffle people around but Robert Abela has made it no secret that he will use the institutions to protect his corrupt friends just like he is doing with JeanPaul Sofia’s case, Christian Borg, and of course his previous master Joseph Muscat. Angelo Gafa was too busy taking care of his career to get involved in these troubles, and eventually, he may end up with nothing. In the end, this ends with a change of power, a series of public inquiries, massive reforms, and many people crying over empty LinkedIn profiles. It’s incredible how people can be so stupid.
Website Editor
Historian and Publisher
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