Will a fraudulent contract given to the Minister’s wife bring down the whole government? Surely, it has exposed the government’s weakness and no one is to blame for it other than the Prime Minister himself and his own Ministers for being even more stupid than himself. If Robert Abela tried to put a lid on the excessive “kulฤงadd jitฤงanลผer” antics to present Labour as distinct from that of Joseph Muscat’s, he surely failed to do so here. Ironically, he messed up in a ministerial terrain that is essential for the survival of the Labour Party as it functions and operates today: the Planning Authority.
The Planning Authority has been the major government entity that facilitates and abets the rent-seeking regime which literally funds and sponsors both major political parties and politicians themselves. Robert Abela is a direct and textbook product of its excesses and corruption. Playing reckless games with it is like taking risks against a potential “Mani Pulite” process that could unravel the whole thing. Now, that the Minister of Gozo and Planning Clint Camilleri is feeling threatened. As the press chased him out of his office, he said, “They won’t get to me,” or something along those lines. He is, of course, feeling the heat for being asked to do a favor for another minister, but ultimately, it was his own stupidity that led him to accept it, and he knows that the Police have the right to investigate him for misappropriation of funds and fraud.
This will be a battle fiercely fought by the Labour government, but all it would take is for Police Commissioner Angelo Gafร to once again refuse to investigate the illegal contract, just as he did in the cases of Justyne Caruana and Frank Fabri. The Opposition is organising a protest and demanding for the Ministers to resign, but Repubblika has also filed a police request to investigate. I’m definitely sure, that this time round, Jason Azzopardi will not accept having his criminal request dismissed so easily, and he very well has legal options to challenge a dismissal by mounting a direct challenge to the Police Commissioner himself. Eventually, if Jason Azzopardi pushes hard enough, he may even very well threaten the whole Rent-Seeking regime.
Minister Clint Camilleri is obviously too big to fail. He is responsible for the Planning Authority which provides permits for the major developments by all major developers who directly fund and subsidise political parties and their politicians. In this regard, Clint Camilleri’s role as Minister of Planning is more essential for the Labour Party than any other ministerial portfolio. Property developers like Joseph Portelli, who have numerous illegalities “regularised” by the Planning Authority does not only admit to funding political parties, but he even brags about it by bringing up his philanthropy. Others, like Michael Zammit Tabona, who received extremely generous concessions for public land, such as the Fortina area are also major donors to the Labour Party. DB Group was awarded the Pembroke ITS site and has admitted to funding both political parties. The latest similar case involves the Villa Rosa project, led by a contractor who is currently funding both major political parties.
At this stage, even in the Labour Party this scandal has morphed into a political issue that is directly challenging the Prime Minister. The โฌ70,000 awarded to Amanda Muscat pale in comparison to the excessive expropriation of public resources by the largest local landlords, but all of it is part of the same culture which is consuming the economy and the politics of Labour. Economic policy is prioritised according to the highest bidder and this is why it is mostly geared in favour of large local landlords and property developers, including big hoteliers: this is the current economy that is based on the volume of labour but not on the quality of productivity, a model that has worked best for the aforementioned rent-seeking business-class.ย It has also warped market dynamics by stifling a free market and innovation by prioritising the same class of businesses at the expense of everyone else.
One of the major points in my latest book, and one of the lingering frustrations of what remains of the left-wing in Labour, is that throughout Labour’s time in power and even under Robert Abela’s tenure, the same class of businesses, namely, major party donors have continued to become significantly richer, all at the expense of the lower-earning classes of society and public resources granted to them.
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