Mediawatch

I am J.

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I am the owner of a flat in Saint Julian’s – Paceville to be exact. For some time now I have known that I share the address of this flat with over fifty individuals who I have never met or contacted in any way. I have known of this Kafkesque situation for over two years.

I have been waiting for a police investigation to be concluded on the issue but due to the prominence that such situations are currently being given in the media and in order to avoid any nasty consequences that could be made by “investigative journalists” jumping to the wrong conclusions I have decided to tell the story of how this came to be on this blog. It is a story that results from the ridiculous legislation and administrative rules governing residence in Malta and (for the record) it starts under a nationalist administration and continues under a labour one. Bear with me. This might take some time….

I am J. 11 years ago, just before I got to know that I would be moving to Luxembourg for a new job I signed an agreement to purchase an apartment in Paceville. Why Paceville? Why not? I had grown up there and I liked it. I never had the chance to move in. By the time I actually bought the apartment I was already installed in Luxembourg. For a very long time it would be my holiday base and I resisted all entreaties to put it on the rental market – partly because I know that I lack the business acumen required in such circumstances (yes, I’m missing some Gozitan traits).

You should know that my visits to Malta are always short and tend to centre around Bank Holiday/Holiday periods when administrations and businesses are on shut down. Anything from installing a phone line to getting work done on the flat would be a logistical nightmare. Even in the internet age you would be surprised as to the number of transactions that require your presence (in person) “Ghax Sir, ma nistghux naqduk inkella”.

Sometime around mid 2012 I decided to bite the bullet and rent out the flat for a short trial period. I approached a decent estate agent based in Paceville and literally got a tenant within seconds. It was simply a question of opening my mouth and saying “I have a flat in Paceville to rent”. The agent told me he had a client next door who was looking for just that. I checked out the person. He seemed a decent businessman, Austrian. He told me that he wanted to start a business in Malta – a driving school aimed at foreign customers.

I assumed (as you would) that the guy needed accommodation in Malta while he would run the school elsewhere. Who runs a school from a flat? Who indeed. The rental contract was signed and Mr Hans Dieter Schwing (real name, not that he gave me any incentive to protect his identity) moved in. There I was thinking Mr Schwing would use my flat as accommodation while running the “school” in appropriate quarters he would probably rent elsewhere.

In fact I had checked out the Schwing’s website – it offered a package to German and Austrian clients (later it turned out to be also East European clients) who would obtain a Maltese driving license “within weeks of applying”. It seemed above board, website and all so I signed the rental agreement and Schwing moved in. He had told me that sometimes it would be a rep of his who would use the apartment as he was moving between Germany and Malta.

As I mentioned earlier I am rarely in Malta and between visits I corresponded with Schwing or his representative in Malta via email. As tenants go they were not very demanding bar the request for a few more fans in summer. I had the first indication of problems half way through the rent when the rep became incomunicado and payments stopped only to be resumed within a month or so. I put this down to bickering between the rep and Schwing. Within a few more months (by March 2013) however everything went awry. Rental payments stopped and Schwing & Co. literally vanished. When I came back to my apartment it was a complete mess. All of the furnishings were broken or irretrievably damaged, the walls and structures damaged (drillings) and there was evidence that the apartment had been used as a dorm including lockers and all.

Schwing was untraceable and I could neither sue for damage nor for rent lost. The damage to the apartment went far beyond the rent payment that had been settled. I resigned myself to repairing the damage and swore never to rent the apartment again. The trouble though was only about to begin.

It turns out that by the beginning of summer in 2013 the post box in the apartment was bulging with mail addressed to persons I had no idea existed. VAT department, Inland Revenue, Financial Services and ID Card office. On my occasional visit I would go through the mail and resend them in the post with “No such person at this address” written across the envelope.

In June 2013 I received a summons from the Police Fraud Unit (now Economic Crimes). The summons read “kaz ta’ falsifikazzjoni ta’ dokumenti u dikjarazzjonijiet foloz”. To be exact, the summons was posted to the address of my apartment. I only read the mail in late September when a family member had been through the mail and I immediately contacted the police officer in question. First thing I informed them is that Jacques Rene’ Zammit would be a Sinjur not a Sinjura as their letter indicated and then I informed them of my willingness to collaborate with their investigation.

On my next visit to Malta which happened to be in November 2013 I was interviewed by PS Sean Scicluna in the Office of Inspector Rennie Stivala. I gave my side of events twice that day. The reason I gave them twice was that the first time that I recounted my story there was a power cut at Police HQ as soon as I finished and I had to return in the afternoon since all the data had been lost on the PC – apparently no save was made while the deposition was in progress.

I signed the declaration and left the office hoping that I would get news from the police regarding any progress. Almost two years have gone by and I have no news from their part yet. Meanwhile I have invested considerable amounts of money in restructuring the flat (an investment that far outweighs the meagre amount I had managed to recoup from the rent period) and I stand by my resolution never again to rent it out to anyone. The mailbox is still regularly flooded with administrative documentation (as is clear from the envelope) and it was touching to see how quickly the political parties added the new “residents” to their mail lists.

From my interview with the police it turns out that it is remarkably easy for someone to get an ID on a residence that is not theirs. The owner is practically powerless and it is even more complicated to get the names OFF the register once they are there. In the words of the police officer you could have walked into the ID office and said you lived in “1, Castille Square” and probably got your ID card.

I am not a victim of the fraudsters. In my case this is no conspiracy of the Joe Sammut kind. I am a victim of shoddy administrative systems that can be so easily abused of. The worst part is that the moment the abnormal list of residents in one flat came into the hands of the police the number one suspect is the owner of the property. This is a ridiculous situation where a citizen can end up bearing the consequences of the shoddy screening by the administration. It does not stop with ID Cards. There are VAT numbers and even letters from the Employment and Training Corporation. I am also almost sure that the dossier at the Fraud Unit had been kicked off by the Electoral Commission (yes, I sneaked a peak during my two hours long interview – boohoo Kaizer Sauzee).

That the current government is so malleable when it comes to dealing in residences is no bonus for people (and I am sure there are many others) in my situation.

I had not felt it necessary to make this issue public because it is a private issue that I had hoped will one day be solved by police intervention and by the smarting up of the administrative authorities who should have better checks about who they register on their books. Since however the flat in question is now being mentioned and linked to other dealings I prefer doing a Wikileaks on myself as I said earlier rather than have the “investigative journalists” have a field day about whatever spurious links they may conjure up between myself and the free-riding residents of my Paceville apartment.

Addenda:

  • People ask how can one not notice when loads of mail arrives in one’s mailbox addressed to unknown persons? True. In my case I am abroad most of the time and when I am back it is a case of piles and piles of letters. Thankfully the police summons came relatively quickly and I was hoping that their work would put an end to the situation. I also ask however how can someone at the VAT department or ETC send out 50 or so letters to different individuals all based at the same address without batting an eyelid?
  • Schwing is still on the run as far as I know. When, after the interview, I asked the police to inform me if he is brought to Malta I was told “good luck, he has loads of creditors who are ready to pounce on him” and they also mentioned a prominent Sliema businessman.
  • My flat is NOT for rent, so please no enquiries.
  • also in today’s Times: http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20150903/local/i-am-victim-says-fake-lease-address-owner.582964

Labour & Flames

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On March 9th 2013 Joseph Muscat’s Labour government decided to switch off the eternal flame (from 6am to 6pm) at the War memorial in order to save money. The move was calculated to save the government €9,000 a year.

On August 27th 2015 it was announced that Joseph Muscat’s Labour government had opted not to have a statue of Dom Mintoff in Castille square. Joseph Muscat’s Labour government opted for an abstract 5 metre high flame instead. Estimates of the cost of creating this flame are around €500,000.

That half a million euro could have kept the eternal flame going for another 55 years.

L-aqwa l-fjamma astratta f’gieh is-salvatur. 

Castille square, now bereft of greenery, will sport a design that mimics the idea of Piazza Campidoglio in Rome. It will be “adorned” with a series of statues culminating in a five metre high flame designed by a ceramic artist commissioned on direct order. In a way it is a fitting symbol of all that is wrong with the ideas behind Joseph Muscat’s Labour.

The Business of Worship

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The Office of the Prime Minister has been busy denying that there are any plans for building a mosque in or around the American University of Malta. Yesterday, the Malta Independent had reported the result of a Social Impact Assessment on the Zonqor Site for Sadeen’s University and had:

“revealed how the Social Impact Assessment on the Zonqor site suggested the inclusion of a mosque on campus seeing that the majority of students attending the American University of Malta are expected to be Muslim. It did not suggest a new mosque for the Cospicua campus since students would be able to attend the Paola mosque. The report, by Dr Marvin Formosa and Mr Joe Gerada, also called for a multicultural education campaign for residents of Marsascala. [The Malta Independent] never implied that a mosque would be built but simply stated the facts that emerge from the document, which was disseminated to the media by the OPM last week.”

The opposition media had jumped at the opportunity to fan the waves of anti-muslim sentiment in Malta by highlighting this suggestion. It is one thing to sell the new University as an opportunity for heavy investment in Malta, it is another to understand the obvious implications of attracting the purported 4,000 or so students and all their needs – including those spiritual. The fact of the matter is that the people happy clapping Joseph Muscat on his visit to Dock number 1 in all the pomp and glory (all the while showering new gifts on the local populace like some character in Sid Meier’s Civilisation) might have quickly turned into a disgruntled lot had the highlight been on the obvious consequence of having to cater for the spiritual needs of the same student population.

This was never meant to be the discussion about whether or not Malta needs a new mosque. Chances are that the current number of practicing Muslims  in Malta warrants a new mosque anyway. The Paola mosque might have become too small for the burgeoning community so we are probably talking about an inevitable consequence anyway. Allah knows whether another construction enthusiast from the Middle East might turn to investing in the construction of a spiritual refuge and whether that will also be considered a good “investiment f’Malta ghall-Maltin”. Good luck to Joseph selling the land space necessary and convincing any local council to become the beneficiary of such heavenly blessings.

And that, really, is the case. Whether or not the OPM intended to heed the warning signs of the Social Impact Assessment is neither here nor there. The truth is that this dubious university investment obviously has the government by the balls. The whole point is neither improving educational standards in a region that is a stone’s throw away from Tal-Qroqq (compare the “South” to Gozo – arguably the furthest region from the UOM but with the highest percentage of students in tertiary education for a very long time) nor about  bringing money or employment that will stay in this fictitious “South”. The point was finding an excuse for Sadeen to build his residential part on ODZ land. In a throwback to Mintoffian begging bowl years disguised as supposed smart salesmanship, Muscat bent over backwards to appease a construction specialist and grant him the people’s land. To sell the project he invented stories about improving education – for whom? Will the sons of Cottonera who failed to attend the UOM for free benefit from the four IT degrees of a haphazardly assembled university?

He sold the lie that this would increase employment for the area: It’s a lie because you are not allowed to discriminate on the basis of residence when employing someone. He sold the lie that the students would leave money in the area. Would they? If Sadeen’s plans are what they seem to be then the students will be spending most of their money in the “American” University itself – when they are not travelling around Europe thanks to the student visa that will perforce be issued (u hallik minn  Joe Sammut). Those who will not be doing the Grand Tour d’Europe will be living in and around the AUM right? Which is where the need for a mosque comes in. Not just a mosque mind you. Is it fear tactics that lead me to mention proper food catering (hallal), maybe a bank or two dealing in sharia approved commerce. How does this impact the local population?

Which is the point I want to get at. The issue of integration where a muslim community is concerned is far from being an openly discussed one in Malta. The assumption is that this is a catholic country with catholic mores. A new mosque is the least of the worries if worry it is. What it cannot be is an unplanned afterthought forced on a community without much planning and education. In a country where the press goes with the flow and ignores the nuances and effects of the choices it makes when reporting we are far from having a clear plan that understands the functioning of a multicultural community. The adaptation of our society to one that really understands and works fully with integration cannot happen as a result of hodgepodge spin-offs of ill-thought planning by this government.

It cannot happen especially in the context of a project that is one big sham from start to end – an excuse for a university that leads to the raping of public land outside a development zone (compromise or no). The mosque cannot become Joseph Muscat’s Trojan to his prostituting of more land and resources to the highest (and shadiest) bidder.

***

The TV station Al-Jazeera has announced in its official blog that it will no longer be using the term “migrant” and its derivatives to refer to the peoples being displaced across the Mediterranean and from the Middle East. The Doha based network has chosen to refer to all such persons as “refugees” from now on. The power of the media is also in the words it uses. Public opinion and sentiment can often be swayed or fanned by the use of certain terms and not others. It is decisions like this that highlight  the full force of words and their use in reporting.

Terms they employ

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Everybody loves the Gaffarenas. Or so it seems. They have been “in bed” with both of the main parties in one way or another. They have kept up their part of the general unspoken deal of the Maltese version of the mafia “pizzo” by making sure that donations (of different proportions) go to the two parties. Whenever they have had business in court they made sure to make use of the services of lawyers on both sides of the great divide in Liliput – the Independent is currently running a story that not only was Beppe Fenech Adami once a lawyer to the Gaffarena family but so were PL MP Joseph Sammut and PL president Stefan Zrinzo Azzopardi. It’s not so much a tirade of mud as it is a tirade of non sequiturs.

This blog has gone on record as saying that the simple matter of begging for and receiving donations from the commercial sector (no matter the amount) is a dangerous game that is played by all parties – whether or not the IOU is eventually cashed later on. Unfortunately this risks to be misinterpreted thanks to the malady of “par condicio” that all parties are guilty of playing the game in the same manner. It is not the case. At all. First of all the political game requires that the message is garbled and confused by throwing together the matter of donations and legal services given to the Gaffarenas as though it was all part of the same boat.

MaltaToday, just before a visit to their offices by Joseph Muscat, had gone ballistic about links between former PN secretary General Joe Saliba and some dealings of the Gaffarena family. Again, no surprises here – even where Saliba is concerned. International politicians like Tony Blair and Bill Clinton retire to the lecture circuit that pays millions in return. Politicians like Saliba and, Austin Gatt (he comes to mind) “retire” to businesses run by former sponsors of their parties. Where does it all put us?

The PN is right to insist that the Labour government is much more eager to allow Gaffarena to cash in on his “investments” with the PL. The proof that we have before us points strongly in that direction. Gaffarena’s petrol stations and property dealings happened under a very faulty and accommodating Labour watch. Labour’s attempt at deviating the issue onto Beppe Fenech Adami’s involvement with Gaffarena as a lawyer is pathetic to say the least. As was the botched attempt to nail Busuttil with some kind of pre-electoral deal with the same. There is no doubt that in this particular circumstance Labour’s clumsy way of playing the political power game is much more at fault than the PN’s.

Is it a defence for the PN that in its time in power it maintained a level of “decency” when dealing with the how and when to accommodate its own sponsors? Not really. The end result is the same – especially in the construction and planning business. PL took up the baton where the PN left it. Only to shed completely any mask that feigned democratic accountability and to plunge directly into undemocratic mayhem. This “mess in denial” is the same one that is reforming MEPA to blatantly accomodate the greed of the construction industry. It is the same one that explodes smoke bombs of supposed scandals in the PN past while obstinately steamrolling over public opinion in matters such as the Zonqor development. As for the latter scandal, for scandal it is, the noise is still so loud about the development in Zonqor that little or nothing more has been said about the actual “university” itself. A real social movement would not only oppose the development in Zonqor per se but would also oppose a Sadeen University of fake anywhere. Yes, anywhere.

The Gaffarena family is now a hot potato in the PLPN battles. It is becoming the scapegoat for all the deals and trading that happened in our corner of the world. Do not get me wrong. Deals with lobbyists, musical chairs in “positions of trust”, preferred traders and the like are a trademark of the democratic system as it happens in the western world. The danger in Malta is that the PL seems to be intent not only to play the game at its most blatantly obvious but also to dismantle completely the system of checks and balances that every now and then acted as  a brake.

Pointing fingers at lawyers for the having offered their services in the past (so long as such services are legit) is just not on. Muscat and his clan are quite adept at surfing the wave of public ignorance. They have little care about the “collateral damage” that could be done in the process so long as the ends justifies the means in the short run. In this, as in many other matters, they are proving to be short sighted and risk being hoist by their own petard in the future.

Ivan Fenech is a dick

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I remember waiting eagerly for the latest installment of “Aħna aħna jew m’aħniex” on TVM. Ivan Fenech’s Cukaj was one of the more memorable characters that satirised the state of Maltese society through the virtual world of Cukaj which, we are told, was originally meant to be Tibet. The TV program was a breakthrough Maltese first (at least for quite a while) – laughing about ourselves and our ways of doing things. Like Peppi and others Ivan had a part in this that cannot but be acknowledged and for which we are grateful. Fast forward to today when Ivan made a return to the media with what has become an exercise of (often justified) labour bashing in the Times.

Certainly the many miles of opinion columns that grace today’s media are salutary to the well-being of our democracy and Ivan Fenech’s contribution should be no less appreciated than any other. Having said that Fenech has sometimes betrayed a rather crass aptitude to the use of sweeping statements and categorisations. Other columnists too have fallen into the trap – sometimes disguising it as some sort of supernatural innate instinct – sniffing “hamalli”, “underworlds” or “chavs” in much the same way a dog might sniff cocaine being clandestinely imported.

Fenech’s latest column (Is Labour burning?) included the following phrases:

“Corleone-born Mafia boss Totò Riina, on the run from the law for decades, is rumoured to have loved visiting Gozo and drinking wine at It-Tokk. It is just a rumour, of course, because in Gozo you cannot pin anything down. Riina needed a holiday now and again and what better place to go to but an island where omertà is something that comes natural. Try asking a Gozitan for directions to someone’s house and you’d see where you’d end up. Even worse, ask them for a VAT receipt.”

Really Ivan? For one second just replace “Gozitan” with “black person” or “Jew” or “woman”. What kind of crap is Ivan peddling here? This denigration of “gozitans” crops up time and again and it is downright ridiculous. First of all it is offensive. Second of all it is an ill-founded assumption. Ivan Fenech should take a look around Malta (you know, the OTHER island where omertà is something that comes natural). He might find that the traits that he attributes to the persons who happen to live on the smaller island are just as rampantly observable on the bigger island. Hell, he just has to take a look at the main protagonists in most of the scandals raging (and burning) on the island to notice that the criminal and anti-social element that he is so keen to attribute to Gozitans is really all-pervasive.

As for Riina. Unless he landed directly on Gozo when flying in from Sicily I am sure he passed through quite a few omertà-inclined individuals in Malta on his way to the ferry. Just a rumour Ivan?

I heard a rumour that you are a dick. There’s quite a few people spreading it, particularly those who you irk with your (often spot on) assessments of Labour’s haplessness in government. It’s only a rumour and you know, on the net it’s hard to pin anything down. probably the best thing to do with this kind of rumour is to treat it for what it is – and unless facts get checked and points proven it would be better to not include them in opinion columns and publications.

The nasty habit of bandying around rumours, hearsay and half-truths will just not do. It makes total dicks out of whoever chooses to do so.

Here’s one from the 80’s Ivan. Dedicated to the good old times of Ahna… and please… no offence… it’s just a rumour.

A Mess in Denial

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The devil used to be in the detail. That was before the Labour government imploded. It’s a bit like what they tell us about some of the stars that we see at night. In truth they are not there, they vanished in a huge explosion a long, long time ago but since it takes light a great amount of time to reach us we still see the stars that are not there.

The Labour government has exploded on all counts. There is barely a ministry or minister who has not got it wrong – and by “it” I mean the whole business of politics. The explosion was gradual, a series of petards that began to hoist Muscat’s roadshow bit by bit. The damage containment was crucially successful at first with the “tu quoque” gambit lasting as long as the dupes who swallowed it allowed. What we are seeing now are the shards and splinters of the explosion flying past our eyes as we look on in disbelief at a government run by a PM who hails from a fireworks importing family get hoist by its own petard. Or petards.

The detail that is not so much a detail now lies in the daily exhibition of denials and weak counterarguments being doctored by government spokespersons, ministers and media. Requests for information turn quickly into denials of the shallowest kind. More often than not “public safety” or “economic sensitivity” are invoked to cover up evident blunders. And the lie is running thin.

Take Michael Falzon’s charade in parliament. The question put to him was clear – has anyone ever benefited from the same ad hoc arrangement that he has. An early retirement that is not really a retirement since he can return back to work with the company whenever he wants  (or at least in 2018). Falzon chose to focus on the sum for early retirement (and thereby distract from the crucial answer).

There were nationalists who got more. Indeed. Possibly. Setting aside the violation of privacy, Falzon failed to explain whether any of these nationalists had the right to return to the bank and get their job back notwithstanding the fact that they had obtained a retirement package. Ad hoc he said, much like the faffing in the last answer he gave before going mum – claiming that he would have to pay the retirement package back “pro rate’. How does that work exactly? Pro rata to what?

Ah the BOV. Good old BOV. The same BOV that is used by the government as a doormat at every opportunity. There it goes making good for 88 million euros out of the hundred something million that the beleaguered Electrogas is supposed to pump into the utopic power station (as promised by Shame On You Wife on Government Payroll). That’s the kind of guarantee no ordinary citizen in Taghna Lkoll Land will ever get. Basically what the bank is saying is that if something goes wrong and Electrogas cannot pay then it is the taxpayers money that will be used to make good. Do you think the government has justified this intervention? You guessed it. Another denial.

Electrogas and BOV that leads us straight to the Chris Cardona farce of a rental contract. If ever anything was evidently drafted ad hoc it is not Michael Falzon’s retirement package but rather Chris Cardona’s hastily drafted rental contract. Should it matter that this contract is signed with someone closely tied to the Electrogas business and that the contract swings excessively in favour of the tenant like no rental contract drafted in recent years has ever done before? Of course it should. We would not care if the implausible rental conditions (practically a gift given the circumstances) were between two normal citizens. But the Economy Minister accepting what is virtually a handout from a person linked to Electrogas. The alarm bells should be ringing. WHat we’ll get is more denials.

Owen Bonnici can wax lyrical about the supposed good the new party financing law will bring but so long as farces as Cardona’s can be carried out in full view then it is all exposed for what it is. A farce. A farce is what went on when Sai Mizzi Liang joined the PM to launch the ever so incredible charade that is being officially referred to as an investment by Huwawei.

The emptiness of this “investment” has been investigated at length elsewhere. We only need comment here that Mizzi Liang’s performance on this and the previous conference where she declared that “Finally we have found her” is below pathetic. Even from the little we could see, the behaviour, the gestures, the little words we got, we could tell that this was someone launched into a position that was far beyond the depth that she could cater for. It might have taken Simon Busuttil a trip to China to gauge that Sai is not fit for purpose but in truth a few minutes of a press conference gave us a glimpse of her absolute incompetence.

The Supernova in the middle of all this explosion is the hapless PM who either lives in denial or who has decided to just live out the next three years as some kind of perilous joyride. While all forms of protocol and institutional balance are thrown to the wind he persists in denying any accusation that his government and its pie in the sky projects (from Sadeen Unis to Medical Schools to Power Stations) is in absolute meltdown. He runs the most expensive cabinet ever that is proving to be the hugest bunch of incompetents ever to have (dis)graced the rooms of government.

It is a mess, in denial.