Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1080741
18 maltatoday EXECUTIVE EDITOR Matthew Vella MANAGING EDITOR Saviour Balzan Letters to the Editor, MaltaToday, Vjal ir-Rihan, San Gwann SGN 9016 E-mail: dailynews@mediatoday.com.mt Letters must be concise, no pen names accepted, include full name and address maltatoday | SUNDAY • 10 FEBRUARY 2019 11 February 2009 Bus owners slam Gatt's 'deceitful' tactics BUS owners are up in arms at what they are calling the Transport Minister's "downright deceit and shameless spin" in the dispute about the payment of government subsidies last year. On Monday, Transport Minister Austin Gatt claimed he was given an ultimatum by the Association of Public Transport (ATP) which was requesting to be paid subsidies for the four-day strike ordered last year. But the letter actually sent by the associa- tion to the minister, and seen by this newspa- per, makes it clear it had agreed not to be paid subsidies for the duration of the strike. The issue is the amount that had to be deducted from the annual subsidy. Speaking to MaltaToday Midweek, ATP President Victor Spiteri lambasted Gatt for "trying to turn the public against bus driv- ers" when the issue had to be tackled through arbitration. "We have never asked to be paid subsidies for those four days. To the contrary, we had agreed there would be no subsidy for the du- ration of the strike." In fact, the drivers' association and the minister had agreed last year to take the mat- ter for arbitration as, while they both agreed about the suspension of subsidies, they disa- greed on the amounts to be deducted. But earlier this year, ADT unilaterally deducted €233,000 from the association's subsidies for 2008. In a letter to the minister, Spiteri wrote: "That they deduct subsidies for every day we went on strike, we understand… but that ADT just deducts €58,250 for every day does not make sense at all." Spiteri said that from a €4 million yearly subsidy, one would expect around €11,000 a day to be deducted, not €58,250. This would in total amount to a €44,000 deduction as op- posed to the €233,000 deducted by ADT. Another €1.5 million are reportedly due from government as public service obligation dues for subsidised tickets for the elderly and students. ....wHe said the agreement also stipulated resuming discussions on the way forward for public transport reform, but this has not hap- pened yet. These included the options to go for an open tendering system, establishing an internal operator under a nationalised public transport service, or outsourcing bus services to SMEs. "Instead, Gatt just faced us with his de- mands on 10 December, in which he told us he was only ready to go for an open tender," Spiteri said. "This would mean that all the investment bus owners have put will go down the drain." MaltaToday 10 years ago Quote of the Week Not even investigated, let alone 'cleared' Editorial ''We are not against giving incentives to foreign investors in Malta. But there are ways and means of doing this without hurting local businesses. We need to avoid treating our local ventures as second-class enterprises.'' GRTU CEO Abigail Mamo on reduced corporate income tax rate given to foreign traders NEWS that Tourism Minister Konrad Mizzi will be withdrawing libel cases against the late Daphne Caruana Galizia, over revelations which emerged from the Panama Papers, may perhaps be viewed as positive: given that it effectively halts what was, until this point, a rather clear- cut attempt to stifle public discussion about this very serious matter. But while Mizzi, on the surface, appears to be doing the right thing, his reasons for do- ing so are at best questionable. The minister said he would not continue to pursue the lawsuits in view of recent court statements which found he had not been involved in any illegalities. In a statement, the tourism ministry said that the Criminal Court had determined that the allegations of money laundering in con- nection with the Panama Papers revelations were "mere speculation". "In the absence of evidence (and there is none), the court dismissed Busuttil's mud- slinging as nothing but conjecture," it said. "In utmost contempt of the ruling, and dis- respecting the Court, Simon Busuttil and David Casa sought further action by the Court of Magistrates. They again asked for an investigation which had just been declared as unwarranted and baseless by the Criminal Court. "Not surprisingly, the Court of Magistrates saw through the ploy and dismissed the second request. It declared that there is no uncertainty in the prevailing legal situation – the courts had already decreed conclusively that Busuttil and Casa's allegations are no valid basis for a criminal inquiry." This represents a willful distortion of the true significance of the two rulings. In Janu- ary, judge Giovanni Grixti upheld an appeal – filed by Joseph Muscat, Keith Schembri, and others – against a previous decision by magistrate Ian Farrugia, who had ruled there was enough evidence for a separate inquiry into the Panama Papers revelations. Mr Justice Grixti effectively threw out the request for an investigation, but his rea- sons for doing so were not exactly the same as suggested by Mizzi's statement. On the contrary, Judge Grixti concluded that Mag- istrate Farrugia had not observed the right of the accused to be informed about replies, declarations and new documents presented by Busuttil. Furthermore, Simon Busuttil's request to the magistrate did not satisfy the pre-requisites for an inquiry by not describ- ing the alleged crime or the subject matter of the crime with all its details. The judge noted that "in recounting many occasions", Busuttil "sees an ulterior motive behind everything, which he is at liberty to do, but he does not say how each one or all together could have been a crime meriting a magisterial inquiry". This, the judge said, is what qualified the report as speculation. Moreover, Mr Justice Grixti ruled that Magistrate Farrugia had applied the wrong law, specifically that for a magisterial inquiry – and not for a police complaint – he who makes an accusation must describe "each and every particular… and the instrument" by which the crime has been committed. The erroneous application of the law had a direct effect on the magistrate's decision. But this ultimately amounts to a legal tech- nicality. It is a long jump from there, to the conclusion that the allegations against Mizzi were false or gratuitous. Indeed, part of the reason for Grixti's rul- ing was that it should have been the police to first investigate the Panama allegations, not a magistrate. This actually confirms that the matter should, in fact, have been investi- gated, but wasn't. As for the second ruling, Magistrate Franc- esco Depasquale turned down a fresh request by Busuttil and Casa for an inquiry into pos- sible money laundering connected with the 17 Black company... on the basis that the alle- gations were already the subject of another investigation. On both counts, then, Konrad Mizzi is clearly wrong to claim that either judge Gio- vanni Grixti or Magistrate Francesco Depas- quale 'exonerated him' of suspected criminal activity. Moreover, by dropping his libel cases, Mizzi is also ensuring that additional facts do not emerge at all. The initiative effectively prevents key witnesses – such as Nexia's own partners – from testifying under oath; and in any case, even in terms of Maltese under- standing, those who relinquish libel claims are not 'settling out of court'; they are 'losing' the case, almost accepting that the claims against them were indeed true, or at least, not negated. In reality, there is not a word or phrase in those court rulings that lets Konrad Mizzi, or his associates, off the hook on the Panama Papers evidence, or allegations of gross tax avoidance or worse. Certainly, Mizzi has never been officially cleared of any alleged wrongdoing. Indeed, he has never even been investigated over the Panama Papers to begin with. This was, in fact, the whole point behind Busuttil's legal argument – flawed though it was – from the outset.