Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1085429
24 maltatoday | SUNDAY • 24 FEBRUARY 2019 OPINION Raphael Vassallo It takes tuna to tango... EVER get the feeling of déjà vu? You know: when a thought takes slightly longer to travel across one of your brain's two hemispheres… so that, when it finally sinks in, it feels as though you've already thought that thought before… even though… um… you haven't? It might not be the best description ever, but it should still give you a rough idea of how I felt as I read the follow- ing in a news report earlier this week: "On 12 November 2010, a letter was sent from the Commissioner to the Maltese government on the imple- mentation of the Bluefin tuna industry, in which it was suggested that the Maltese au- thorities perform an adminis- trative inquiry […] a few days later, the environment minis- try's permanent secretary had requested an internal audit […] The investigation was prompted by a letter to the EU's fisheries commissioner Maria Damanaki, which reported cases of non-com- pliance, and lack of controls under then director Andreina Fenech Farrugia…" And then, to cap it all… "The IAID investigation revealed serious irregularities, amongst others: Caging figures for 2008 and carry over quanti- ties were inconsistent with data provided by the tuna farms, with no reconciliation made by the Fisheries Control Directorate's scientific officer of some 1,103 pieces of tuna; Shortcomings and omissions in respect of fisheries con- trol and enforcement of tuna operations in 2008, because of an inability to reconcile data of farm operators on a peri- odical basis; No invoices for some 175,000kg of tuna sold to Turkey in 2008 by Malta Fish Farming Ltd; [etc, etc]" That's funny: I could have sworn I'd already read all that somewhere before… and quite a long time ago, too. Actually no, wait… it's coming back to me now. I don't remember reading all that before… as much as writing it. There is, in fact, not a single detail in the 2010 report, tabled by Jason Azzopardi in Parlia- ment on Monday, that wasn't mentioned somewhere in this newspaper way back in 2007, 2008, and 2009: i.e., before that report was even drawn up. It was, in fact, 'inconsisten- cies between caging figures and data provided by the industry' that led to those articles being written in the first place. It all started with the observation – originally by the World Wildlife Fund in 2007 – that Malta had mi- raculously managed to export more tuna to Japan than its tuna ranches could (officially) hold. This led to an examina- tion of Malta's export data, which also revealed that – apart from 'caging figures' – a substantial percentage of that tuna had been labelled as 're-exports'… raising suspi- cion that some of it may have been illegally caught by other countries, and laundered through Malta's official chan- nels. The same articles also went into quite some detail regard- ing some of the individual cases highlighted in that report (and, separately, in other reports that are only emerging now): for instance, the 'storm damage' that freed some 600 tonnes of tuna on the day before an inspection in 2009. The eight million euro worth of tuna that were held by Japanese customs owing to paperwork discrep- ancies; and even the above- mentioned 175,000kg of tuna sold to Turkey in 2008. All these cases, and many others besides, were placed in the public domain (and not just by me, in case you're wondering: a lot more came out of an in-depth report by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists) more than 10 years ago. Yet it is also now – long, long after multiple lawsuits were filed against me by all the opera- tors in that industry, with the (successful) goal of shutting this newspaper up – that an MP (who was a cabinet minister at the time in ques- tion) suddenly remembers that… Oh yes: those articles about corruption in the tuna sector 10 years ago? The ones my government had denied so vehemently in 2007, 2008 and 2009? Well, they were all along correct. And here is a top-secret, never-previously- published, EU-commissioned investigation report to prove it… Honestly, it is good thing that I followed someone's advice recently, and started attending an anger-manage- ment course. Otherwise, I would have probably ended up smashing my keyboard to atoms in a fit of unbridled, apoplectic fury… for the sec- ond time in only two years. But now, I know better. Now, I know that I have to take a deep breath… count slowly to 10… exhale profuse- ly… and only then, say what I Ah yes. The small matter of why an investigation into Malta's tuna industry took place all those yonks ago in 2010, but was unaccountably (in all senses of the word) kept under wraps for the next decade… and even, to be sprung out of nowhere only because it serves a partisan- political purpose for the MP tabling it in Parliament...