Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1262267
THE Montenegro wind farm link to Yorgen Fenech's 17 Black company in Dubai, which has been acknowledged as the tar- get company for the secretive Panama accounts opened by Brian Tonna's Nexia-BT for Jo- seph Muscat's chief of staff Keith Schembri and former energy minister Konrad Mizzi leave us more shocked than ever before. The bigger question is where former prime minister Joseph Muscat stands in all this. Because to those who em- braced the 'Taghna Lkoll' ethos for good reason after years of political lethargy, nepotism and incompetence, the rage is with- out limit. It is unforgivable. Joseph Muscat's right-hand men supported a political system that nurtured and fed their greed by way of backroom deals and kickbacks. They may not all be supported by 100% hard proof, but the circumstantial evidence is abundant and the benefit of the doubt has long run out. What has happened in Mal- tese politics is that party was allowed to be populated by de- cision-makers with no roots in its socialist tradition and instead saw the party as a vehicle to en- rich themselves. Ironically, the first indication that should have set off the alarm bells – especially about Keith Schembri – happened after the 2013 election. Labour was in understandable euphoria and the Nationalist party was licking its wounds. Joseph Muscat was then the unassailable leader, re- vered by thousands. Suddenly, a deal was inked for unpaid loans amounting to near- ly €5 million by the shareholders of Premier Café in Valletta to be bailed out by a government deal to buy back their 65-year con- cession instead of making them pay their rightful dues. The in- tervention of Castille in this obscure case raised eyebrows, but nothing more. MaltaToday broke the story, and then Castille sent the matter to the National Audit Office for investigation. Two of the Café Premier share- holders, both well-known Na- tionalist sympathisers – one a stockbroker and the other a businessman of sorts – ran their business venture into the ground and into the red, with debts to banks that could not have possi- bly been written off unless they sold their assets. They could not sell their Valletta property lease of course, because it belonged to the State. Surprise, surprise, an order came from high above for the State to buy back that lease, with taxpayers' money going di- rectly to the banks to kill their outstanding payments. There was speculation then that this kind act did not go without a thank-you note, in other words a kickback. I had then considered the suggestion as exaggerated and simply con- spiratorial. Today, I think differently. Peo- ple then were asking, why did Castille intervene on Café Pre- mier and not other projects that were floundering? That was sev- en years ago. And Café Premier is old news. But it was then a wake-up call to what was going on inside Castille – the modus operandi of getting in on busi- ness deals. The shareholders of that busi- ness are now happy men with nothing to worry about. They probably never voted Labour in the first place, because they know that the individuals who handled their 'bad debt' were possibly compensated in a very considerate way. And that is perhaps the moral of the story: political nepotism is bad, and it can be ingrained in families who carry about their own; but cor- ruption has no colour or loyalty, and just an obsession with greed. Fast forward to Montenegro. The revelation by Reuters on the Enemalta-Montenegro deal coincided with Malta's Venice Commission conclusions being made public. The Montenegro scandal reinforces the belief that at this level of corruption, the link between 17 Black and the powers that be is rock-solid. Worse still, the trail takes us to that undulating country road in Bidnija that saw the heinous murder of Daphne Caruana Gal- izia. The outburst that followed the Montenegro story was to be expected. Nationalist leader Adrian Delia's reaction was lost in the hubbub surrounding the allegations that he had accepted €50,000 from Yorgen Fenech in return for a commitment that he would work against David Casa's re-election. He has little cred- ibility left, which is a pity con- sidering the sorry state of the Labour party. For all his faults, David Ca- sa was hard on the heels of 17 Black, definitely seen as a spoke in the wheels by the men at Castille. But what appears to be missing in all this drama, is not the determination to know all the truth. It is evident from what we have been hearing in court from the middleman Melvin Theuma that not all he says is totally convincing. From what we know there are tapes and references to tapes that have been avoided by the prose- cution so far. There are those who believe that the murder of Caruana Galizia was not singularly craft- ed by Yorgen Fenech. And in- deed, this could be a web that reaches out to many others. What is certain is that Fenech is privy to these facts; with the 17 Black story, he is the key to the corruption and kickbacks that lead us to top political figures. Asking a simple question is more than justified. Would a deal with Yorgen Fenech speed up the investigations leading to the closure of the Caruana Gal- izia murder and investigations into all the criminal and corrupt dealings of the last Labour ad- ministration that have ruined this country's reputation? Definitely, those same men who could be 'parties' to what happened in October 2017 might have certainly avoided certain questions about whether to issue a pardon or not in No- vember 2019. Prime Minister Robert Abela has a dilemma. He knows that he could potentially be the one to hasten the eradication of the Muscat legacy by revealing the truth. He has a choice to make. It is not an easy one. Faced with an Opposition not fit to govern and with no polit- ical alternative in sight, he still should not hesitate to seek the truth and closure. Doing the right thing is never going to be easy! 5 maltatoday | SUNDAY • 21 JUNE 2020 OPINION Saviour Balzan @saviourbalzan The right thing to do. But it will not be easy... Prime Minister Robert Abela has a dilemma. He knows that he could potentially be the one to hasten the eradication of the Muscat legacy by revealing the truth. He has a choice to make. It is not an easy one