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MW 20201111

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9 maltatoday | WEDNESDAY • 11 NOVEMBER 2020 ANALYSIS questioned the legality of a €360 million government guarantee for the project. In September 2016, Simon Busuttil himself himself de- scribed the LNG tanker as "a mon- ument of corruption". In 2015, MP ERyan Callus said the proposal to construct Tumas's four skyscrap- ers in Mriehel "stinks of corrup- tion". Despite these accusations from his own party, Azzopardi had no problem calling up Ray Fenech. Even before Labour's election, the Tumas Group benefitted from land use policies which saw the St Julian's land at Portomaso leased by the State to the developers for €445,000 a year until 2114. It was eventually sold to the developers for €1.8 million in 2006. This is a reminder that the Tumas Group, thanks to its role as a strong player in tourism and the property mar- ket, had long wielded influence on both parties. Azzopardi claims he did not expect the stay to be free, but admits asking for help from the Tumas magnate for accommoda- tion instead of searching the web as common mortals usually do before going on holiday Azzopardi said it was only while checking out that the hotel recep- tionists said his Tel Aviv bill had been taken care of, and that this came as a surprise. But Azzopardi said he contacted Raymond Fenech asking for help in finding a hotel in Tel Aviv, where he had been invited to attend a wedding. The Tumas Group does not own hotels in Israel – they own the Hilton at Portomaso, so the request was to have the Tumas influence applied in his favour with the Hilton chain elsewhere. At the very minimum this sug- gests Azzopardi had no qualms on requesting a favour from a business group, when already a target of his party's criticism. He had enough familiarity with Ray Fenech to be in a position to request this sort of assistance and for Fenech to feel obliged to pay for the entire hotel stay. His request gave Fenech the opportunity to bestow a gift to Az- zopardi, which was not squarely refused or paid back in full. Azzopardi then felt obliged to gift Fenech a silver gift: but this transaction of gifts was never de- clared in a way which would have cancelled any sense of obligation Azzopardi thinks he avoided any obligation to Fenech with a silver gift for the Tumas director. Did the value of the gift match the Tel Aviv hotel stay? Why not send a cheque and pay one's dues in full? Still, the failure to disclose the gift even when asked about it, is the most damning for it undermines his moral high ground. An ac- knowledged mistake is more eas- ily forgiven than one exposed by the press. And though in 2017 he could have not known the fate of Fenech's nephew, his past actions are now viewed through the optics of the present. Azzopardi was not conditioned by the gift in confronting Yorgen Fenech, but ethical guidelines are there to to prevent potential conflicts irrespective of the inten- tions of the actors involved Azzopardi's track record as MP and the indomitable lawyer of the Caruana Galizia family suggests the Tumas freebie did not condi- tion him in his political actions. But ethical rules are there to prevent potential conflicts and obligations irrespective of the intentions of those involved. The code of ethics proposed by Standards Commis- sioner George Hyzler precludes the receipt of any gifts which place ministers and MPs "under an ob- ligation", while proposing a trans- parent system through which oth- er legitimate gifts are registered. They also have to register any gifts of the same value, which they be- stow to others. The code has still to be approved and therefore Azz- opardi will not be judged by Hyzler on the basis of it, but it does sug- gest that Azzopardi's behaviour in this case is problematic. By failing to come clean in the past three years, Azzopardi has no one but himself to blame for giving government officials who received gifts from Fenech an opportunity to turn the tables on the Opposi- tion even if this is being done in a way which obfuscates facts by cre- ating a false equivalence. Yet the strategy is effective in drawing on a widespread percep- tion that Azzopardi applies a dif- ferent yardstick for himself than he expects from others. Even though motivated by the opportunistic prospect of a freebie at the Hilton, the MP may well have given the Fenechs the impression that he was willing to play along in the game of gift exchange between the political and business class, which ultimately corrodes Maltese de- mocracy. Jason was wrong in hiding Tumas gift

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