Tag: John Dalli

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Campaign 2013

The surreal case of (ex) Commissioner Dalli

The next time there is an election for Sliema’s local council don’t expect a long list of potential candidates queueing outside Paul Borg Olivier’s door.  Silvio Zammit (no relation) is the latest PN councillor (and deputy mayor) to resign from his post citing “personal reasons”. Of course, the fact that he is embroiled in the scandal that has rocked the European Commission might be much more than a personal reason but hey… who’s nitpicking here? At the time of writing this post we do not have much to rely upon other than a statement by John Dalli (no surprise there – denial of involvement) and press statements by the Commission shedding light on the results of an OLAF (anti-Fraud office) report into the matter.

The unavailability of any further facts precludes anyone from acting as judge and jury on John Dalli, Silvio Zammit or the OLAF office for all that matters – without facts it is all based on speculation. This does not mean however that the goings-on over the last 24 hours do not merit more than a passing observation since a number of conclusions can be drawn – irrespective of the where the final proof will ultimately take us. Here goes:

1. Malta’s shame – PN’s dishonour

There’s a scandal in the Commission and it involves a Maltese nominated Commissioner. No amount of “boo-ya I told you so” celebrations on the part of some anti-Dalli factions within the PN will compensate for that one. If, as seems to be the general theory, the post of Commissioner was used as a sort of “kicking upstairs” of an inconvenient politician (a policy that seems to make party priorities trump national interest) then it is clear where the responsibility lies. If a one-man show blog could come up with this kind of CV for Dalli we can really see the nomination for Commissioner in perspective.

In comparison to the pie-on-the-face that comes along with a disgraced Commissioner, the  Silvio Zammit bit of the scandal is tantamount to a few crumbs on one’s beard. Be that as it may, it is no insignificant fact that Silvio Zammit was until a few hours ago a PN councillor who ran for elections in a locality on a PN ticket. The mere existence of the emails linking him with the Swedish company suffice to demonstrate that Silvio Zammit is used to an unorthodox way of approaching politics and that is a euphemism. His antics have contributed to adding him to an increasingly long list of ex-PN councillors who fail to understand the basic concept of proper political behaviour. This is a massive fail for the nationalist party – a huge glitch in the system that can only be exacerbated if the right scrutiny is not exercised on future candidates: at both local and national level.

2. Media wars

There was a banal exercise of mental masturbation yesterday as different “media companies” battled for the unenviable prize of having “broken the news” of Dalli’s resignation. I first heard of it via a phone call of a relative of mine who told me that RTK had just included a flash news in the bulletin. I am no authority on “who came first” in this instance though and quite frankly being first to get the news is nowadays much less important since the “scoop” is liable to lose its unique value in minutes if not seconds. What is more important is getting the right news and the right information. Not giving the news a particular slant at an early stage is important (as Natalino Fenech rightly could teach a few elements within the Labour party) .

So what did we know and what did the media tell us? Here’s a list of statements lifted from different media sources with a CONFIRMED OR UNVERIFIED quotient:

  1. 1. John Dalli has resigned from his post of Commissioner – (CONFIRMED) – (ALL NEWS)
  2. His resignation follows an OLAF investigation into alleged fraudulent activities – (CONFIRMED) – (ALL NEWS)
  3. The alleged activities involve contacts between a businessman and acquaintance of John Dalli & a Swedish Tobacco company (CONFIRMED) – (CM RELEASE)
  4. OLAF found conclusive proof of exchanges between this businessman and the Swedish Company. (CONFIRMED) – (REPORTS OF EMAILS & CM RELEASE)
  5. The OLAF report did not find any conclusive evidence of the direct participation of Mr Dalli but did consider that he was aware of these events (CONFIRMED) – (CM RELEASE)
  6. John Dalli categorically denies being aware of these events (CONFIRMED) – (PBS TVHEMM interview)
  7. The OLAF report showed clearly that the European Commission’s decision-making process and the position of the services concerned has not been affected at all by the matters under investigation. (CONFIRMED) – (CM RELEASE)
  8. The corrupt activity involved a Maltese businessman named as Silvio Zammit (TIMES, MALTATODAY, DI-VE – no explanation of how his name is out).
  9. The corrupt activity involved a Maltese entrepreneur who had approached the company using his contacts with Mr Dalli and sought to gain financial advantages in exchange for influence over a possible future legislative proposal on snus. (CONFIRMED – CM RELEASE, OLAF REPORT)

At this point we have to look at an article by MaltaToday that stands out for a particular slant that it gives to the correspondence between Zammit and Swedish Match. All the information gleaned from most sources (and in particular the Commission’s press statement) indicated that Zammit had contacted Swedish Match and that he “sought to gain financial advantages in exchange for influence over a possible future legislative proposal”. Whatever way that is read you get the idea that Zammit contacted Swedish Match and offered to use his confidence with John Dalli in order to influence future Tobacco law. The phrase “sought to gain financial advantage” clearly implies that Zammit offered his services for a fee.

Yet. And this is a bit yet. Maltatoday, having claimed to have seen part or all of the email exchange, titles its article “Silvio Zammit was offered fee to set up meeting with John Dalli – email“. In the article in question we find the following paragraphs:

MaltaToday is informed that Zammit was in contact with Swedish Match over the possibility of influencing John Dalli ahead of a major revision of the Tobacco Products Directive that would have further regulated the access of tobacco to minors and other non-tobacco products like Swedish Match’s snus.

Swedish Match told MaltaToday that had they received an “indecent proposal that was a real and credible offer” by a Maltese businessman who claimed he could influence Dalli on his anti-tobacco legislation.

According to the email between Zammit and Swedish Match, the Nationalist councillor was offered a fee to broker a meeting between the company and John Dalli.

This information does not result from any other publicly available piece of news. MaltaToday is giving a diametrically opposite twist to the events by implying that “according to the email between Zammit and Swedish match”, Silvio Zammit was offered a fee to broker a meeting between the company and John Dalli. So it would seem that rather than sending an email to the Swedish company in which he offered his services in exchange for a fee, Zammit – once contact was established – actually received an offer of a fee to broker the meeting. Which would be rather strange since the Swedish company then proceeded to report the facts to the Commission/OLAF for investigation.

It is in John Dalli’s interests to first and foremost prove that he had no knowledge of the going-on. Insofar as the current situation is concerned that would exclude him from the corrupt activities that allegedly involve the former Sliema PN Councillor. Whether or not the Swedish company or Silvio Zammit was doing the “offering” is irrelevant to John Dalli once he manages to prove that he was extraneous to the whole events.

Meanwhile, MaltaToday would do well to either publish the emails in its possession or rewrite the article in question in order to eliminate any ambiguity. Unless of course ambiguity was the original intention of the article (not that the headline leaves much space to imagination).

3. Conclusions

In this pre-election run up Dalli finds himself once again out of the game. New scandals, new allegations mean that any aspirations he had to join the dagger-fest that is brewing in Pietà must perforce be put on hold. The nationalist party does not come out of this series of events any stronger. Pie on Dalli’s face is pie on Lawrence Gonzi’s nomination for commissioner – a serious post that commands respect (which also puts a huge petard on the ridiculous conspiracy theories involving a nationalist plot to rid themselves of Dalli).

For starters the PN government has to nominate a new commissioner – and if this is to be a valid, face-saving politician it means disqualifying one of the big guns from the forthcoming national election. Tonio Borg is being mentioned and I would not be surprised if Simon Busuttil get a few virtual votes either. Everybody seems to be forgetting about our Ambassador Emeritus at this point – who better to sit wisely on a Commission seat? Labour exponents seem to be fantasticating about “Labour’s right” to nominate the commissioner. Nothing would be more ridiculous. That bright europarliamentarian Joseph Cuschieri has even suggested Alfred Sant – of course, Alfred “Switzerland in the Mediterranean” Sant. As they like to say with so much tongue in cheek in their parts… bir-rispett kollu!

As for Silvio Zammit. Well, he is definitely not the last of the PN circus act (pardon the pun) to have hit a brick wall when it comes to politics. Unless something is done about having a proper school of politicians – not the yes men kind who dwell on the mistaken idea that it is all about power and networking – then we surely have more surprises in the waiting from the nationalist party stables.

 

******

CM RELEASE – PRESS STATEMENT OF THE EUROPEAN COMMISSION – 16 OCTOBER 2012

Press statement on behalf of the European Commission

Commissioner John Dalli has today announced his resignation as a member of the Commission, with immediate effect.

Mr Dalli informed the President of the European Commission Jose Manuel Barroso of his decision following an investigation by OLAF, the EU’s antifraud office, into a complaint made in May 2012 by the tobacco producer, Swedish Match. The company alleged that a Maltese entrepreneur had used his contacts with Mr Dalli to try to gain financial advantages from the company in return for seeking to influence a possible future legislative proposal on tobacco products, in particular on the EU export ban on snus . As soon as the Commission received the complaint it immediately requested OLAF to investigate.

The OLAF final report was sent to the Commission on 15 October. It found that the Maltese entrepreneur had approached the company using his contacts with Mr Dalli and sought to gain financial advantages in exchange for influence over a possible future legislative proposal on snus. No transaction was concluded between the company and the entrepreneur and no payment was made. The OLAF report did not find any conclusive evidence of the direct participation of Mr Dalli but did consider that he was aware of these events.

The OLAF report showed clearly that the European Commission’s decision making process and the position of the services concerned has not been affected at all by the matters under investigation.

The final OLAF report and its recommendations are being sent by OLAF to the Attorney General of Malta. It will now be for the Maltese judiciary to decide how to follow up.

After the President informed Mr Dalli about the report received from OLAF, Mr Dalli decided to resign in order to be able to defend his reputation and that of the Commission. Mr Dalli categorically rejects these findings.

Mr Barroso has decided that Vice President Maros Sefcovic will take over the portfolio of Mr Dalli on an interim basis until a new Commissioner of Maltese nationality is appointed in accordance with article 246 (2) of the Treaty on the functioning of the European Union.

Mr Giovanni Kessler, Director-General of OLAF will be available in the press room after the midday briefing tomorrow.

Categories
Articles

J'accuse : They love me all

“To men fighting for their lives day by day in the foulest of physical conditions it was nauseating to read, day after day, the lying official communiqués in the Press.” I came across this quote in a book by BBC journalist John Simpson (Unreliable Sources, Macmillan 2010) that is turning out to be an excellent and informative run-through of “how the 20th century was reported”. The quote itself is from an unnamed book by A.J. Cummings, editor of the News Chronicle early last century.

John Simpson’s work provides an authoritative insight into how the relationship between the press and the world altered − starting from the Boer War at the close of the 19th century and ending with the Iraq war at the turn of this century. It shows how the press managed to morph into various forms: from a useful tool of government propaganda at the height of jingoistic enthusiasm, to the inventive “journalism” based on ‘stands to reason’ assumptions. The quest to ‘report’ (and be the first to do so) eventually got entangled with political motivation and eventually political slant.

Conflicts

As I type, BBC World News is showing an e-mail from a viewer questioning the wisdom of a news item (by John Simpson incidentally) from Libya that might have been useful in reporting the strife in a particular corner of the world but might also, the viewer argued, have put the lives of those reported in further peril. Journalists working in war conditions are often faced with dilemmas − they need to substantiate the claims of aggression, murder and violence but to do so they need hard evidence. The battle lines are also drawn in the field of information.

Colonel Gaddafi and his son Saif have proved to be adept at manipulating the one great weakness of public information: doubt. The Gaddafis may be psychotic, they may be a rambling caste of lunatics but they are demonstrating a knack for playing with the weak-kneed and abusing the loopholes opened up by questionable precedents in the past. Early in the struggle, Muammar displayed this knack by bringing into play the Tiananmen and Moscow exception. It was not just down to

braggadocio: Moscow and Beijing sit on the Security Council. Gaddafi was speaking directly to the capitals, reminding them of the precedent they had set.

This week, as the battle between rebels and faithful forces (it is not such a coincidence that this kind of plight sounds like a more mundane plot to Star Wars) seemed to be moving towards a desert-induced stalemate, Gaddafi and Saif went into a PR overdrive. Don’t laugh. I’m not referring to pills in Nescafe bull. I’m referring to the enormous effort to sell the idea that this was a legitimate sovereign government under threat from foreign forces. Precedent, precedent, precedent. The international community hesitated to echo the word in the street: “Gaddafi Out!” We ended up with sanctions and more evacuations.

Perception

In 1935, following the Italian invasion of Abyssinia, the League of Nations had also displayed an uncanny ability to hesitate − its inability to take effective action has been linked to the inability of the members to give the necessary importance to Abyssinia and their fear of driving Mussolini into Hitler’s hands. The script in Libya is not identical to the Abyssinian question, but the move by Gaddafi to appoint new envoys at the UN and to continue to plug the line that his is a government under siege that is being falsely depicted in the news is intended to destabilise concerted international action.

Gaddafi’s targets are the weak-willed members of the international community. They are those who hate to be reminded of cosying up to the dictator, or worse, those who hate to look at him and see a bad copy of themselves. They are those who fell for his trap of “precedent”. Russian TV has promoted newsclips denying any air raids on civilians. The corroboration of Gaddafi’s assertions seemed misplaced in the light of other news items from the rest of the world. While conspiracy theorists might revel in this 2011 equivalent of the moon landing denials, you do get to wonder how much of this corroboration was scripted with Chechnya on the Russians’ mind (or the early rumblings of the Jasmine revolution’s spread to China).

bert4j_110306

Neighbours

Closer to home we had our own set of weak-willed who seemed to be prima facie advocates of caution. Their enthusiasm to play into the hands of Gaddafi and his spin soon unmasked them though. From (EU Commissioner) John Dalli to (former politician) Reno Calleja, they inexplicably pandered to the “wait and see” approach − sometimes even venturing on the “denial of violence by Gaddafi” line. Dalli stopped just short of accusing the international press of a montage that was intended to denigrate the Green Book Writer. It will be hard for Dalli to wriggle out of this mess. What counted for Joseph Muscat, with regard to image damage when it comes to management in times of crises, will also count for Dalli if what seems to be his inevitable leadership challenge ever comes true.

Malta’s press and people have enjoyed the limelight of this Libyan Crisis in a weird way. I had a bit of a problem with this sudden heroic status of our government and state because of its aiding and the “evacuation” of people caught in the midst of the Libyan Civil Uprising. Mind you, I had no problem with what was termed ‘heroics’, the government was after all doing the decent thing.

We cheered boatloads of Koreans, Chinese and Croatian workers entering the harbour. They were fleeing a war zone but it was OK − not just OK but heroic − for us to assist them in their plight. Only a few weeks back we would have had only one type of response to boatloads of refugees/immigrants fleeing their troubles. I guess our reply then would scarcely have qualified us to lick the boots of heroes.

Love
Communication has become vital in today’s world. A simple twist of words and a dedicated barrage of counter-information can make a dictator sound like the victim of a foreign conspiracy. There will always be those who are either too stupid, too duped or too involved to ask the right questions. Today’s press holds an important weapon in the battle for truth and justice. When wielded by the wrongpeople it can cause anything from irreparable damage to mental stagnation.

I wonder, though, what it will take to convince someone like John Dalli that the half a Libyan body (torso up) lying in the streets of Benghazi does not love Gaddafi. What media orchestration could have hospitals unable to take new patients, blood running on the streets and hundreds of thousands of people fleeing the country? Are all these people so stupid to have swallowed the media montages to the hilt? Really John: can you believe Muammar Gaddafi when he smiles at the BBC correspondent and says: “The people… they love me all”?

Jacques René Zammit blogs daily at www.akkuza.com… celebrating six years of pioneering quality blogging in Malta
on 10 March.

This article and accompanying Bertoon appeared yesterday in the Malta Independent on Sunday.

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Categories
Mediawatch Politics

Dalli vs The Times (and the sidekick)

It’s interesting how on the day I put in context DCG’s mid-week comments on “fish-pondism”, the Times gives us a particular example of their attempts at creating their own fish-pond news. I don’t know why they bothered with an article entitled “Dalli speaks of Brussels term as four year sentence”: I mean the title would have been enough don’t you think? In fact all that we can glean from the rest of the article is that this was no official statement or occasion. For all we know – on the face of the evidence provided by the Times’ man in Brussels – it could have been a familiar chat with some journalists that was off the record. But why the rush from the Times to highlight the “four year sentence statement”? Was Dalli joking or referring to all the ruckus that was raised about his being sidelined in the first place? Will we ever know?

Here’s what the Times had to say:

Former Minister John Dalli has described his current stint at European Commissioner as a ‘four year sentence’ which will soon end.’  He made his comments to a number of Maltese journalists in Brussels.

You’d expect a little bit more information than that no? Context for example? Is the journalist in question reporting a comment made off the record by an EU commissioner to journalists – again if the context is the implication that Dalli was sent off to Brussels to get out of some people’s way you would not blame him for joking nervously about it. The Times report seems to be intent to making it seem a serious enough comment though. It’s inviting the stupid same kind of stupid thinking as hte PQ by the labour backbencher who asked about salaries and the President. The type that considers Dalli an ungrateful sod for having accepted the salary of a Commissioner AND having the gall to come back to Malta for more.

More what exactly? The lucrative business of politics? What’s the big attraction anyway? Lino Spiteri has a point to make on that in today’s Times opinion pages. There’s also an interesting story about Austin’s Sidekick on Maltatoday that provides valuable material in understanding how certain politicians (or in this case wannabe politicians) get their electoral campaigns bankrolled. I’ve had a look at the 2i Ltd website mentioned in the article and … sure enough… they also specialise in Bus Scheduling Software.

Delia the Sidekick engages in a bout of Sumo
Unstomachable

Good old Delia the Sidekick … reliable in his consistency – same old, same old. What were you thinking with that slogan anyway? “We represent a huge experience and outstanding intellectual potential”? The only truth about that is the “huge” part… as for the rest… same old pompous bull. Now the Nationalist Party really has found the cherry on the cake.

As a parting note, a message for John Dalli: “Brussels term” is not a “four year sentence”, if anything it’s a “two word phrase”.

* The Indy too went along with the story (Christopher Sultana). Again I have a problem with the “has learnt” bit of the reporting. If the journalists were in the same office as John Dalli why add the phrase “has learnt” as though it is hearsay or as though the information was obtained from secondary sources?

Here’s the Indy’s take:

European Commissioner John Dalli intends returning to the local political scene after his term in Brussels expires, The Malta Independent on Sunday has learnt. Speaking to a group of Maltese journalists at his office in Brussels earlier this week, Mr Dalli referred to his term as Commissioner responsible for Health and Consumer Policy as a “four-year sentence that will soon be up”.

So now we know Dalli uttered the words in a meeting with journalists in his office.  Still “has learnt”? Was Christopher Sultana in that office? Are the Independent reporting a press release of some kind or a shared source that was originally from another paper?