The answer to the journalists’ questions put forward today, to top Labour Party officials Daniel Micallef and Ramona Attard, is positive. Silvio Grixti is still a member of the Labour Party where he belongs.
I have my opinion and judgment on Silvio Grixti which contrasts with that of many. Silvio Grixti was used by Ministers and the OPM to beef up their vote count with a social-benefit racket, but Silvio Grixti never received bribes as part of this racket, and in many cases, he didn’t even charge his patients – this is something he does often and is well-known for in the South of Malta. Silvio Grixti’s actions were undoubtedly wrong, but there is a difference between being part of a racket as a useful tool from being its main instigator. When the racket was uncovered, Robert Abela threw Silvio Grixti under the bus and covered up its main political recipients like Michael Falzon and Owen Bonnici, apart from covering up for the corrupt handlers.
Silvio Grixti’s motivations in the racket were more ideological – making use of a social benefits racket to issue aid to the poor. As Grixti was asked by the OPM to provide medical certificates to its references, Grixti could make use of this system to provide medical certificates to many others who were not referred by Labour politicians and many of these are also genuine cases that need help, despite the fact that they may have not been eligible for the particular aid they were receiving thanks to Silvio Grixti’s certificates. I know very well of the poverty and the struggles of large sections of the population in the South of Malta, and fraud for genuine material reasons is a reality. It’s not something that I agree with, but it exists.
Of course, I can make this assessment by being privy to the case, and also having a deep knowledge of the politics and social dynamics in the South of Malta. I’ve known of Silvio Grixti as a socialist doctor well before this social racket was ever unraveled, and I know this due to the fact that he had helped many genuine cases I had personally known.
There are obvious reasons why Robert Abela wants to throw Silvio Grixti under the bus. Robert Abela can sacrifice Silvio Grixti and pretend he is fighting corruption, but that’s not the real story. There have been much greater corruption scandals involving top-ranking Labour politicians and none of these cases were investigated with the same zeal and rigor that the police are investigating the social benefits racket. Most of the police inspectors with the FCID are currently involved in the case of the social-benefits racket and rarely if ever there was such a zeal to address a corruption scandal.
There is much more that can and should be said.
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