Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1507818
maltatoday | SUNDAY • 17 SEPTEMBER 2023 COMMENT The Skinny Malta, shrunk down EDITORIAL A case for EU strategic autonomy PAGE 2 JOSANNE CASSAR 'Speak to someone, they will arrange it for you' PAGE 6 The collective unlearning of a lifestyle which almost encourages wastefulness will not come easy as can be seen from the current resistance MARTIN GALEA DE GIOVANNI | PAGE 11 What are we skinning? The disabil- ity benefits racket allegedly spear- headed by former Labour MP Silvio Grixti and which appears to have defrauded government -- and by extension, taxpayers -- out of some- thing like 2 million euro. Why are we skinning it? Because it's as avid an illustration as any that old school forms of corruption continue to thrive in supposedly modern Mal- ta. But the case has been uncovered. Yes, and it prised open the inner workings of a system through which beneficiaries who suffer from no dis- abilities -- let alone the severe kind -- were able to take home something like 450 eur a month in exchange for party loyalty. Those responsible have been caught though... or at the very least, are under investigation. Right? Yes, Grixti resigned in late 2021, for reasons that hinted at the racket... though nobody would have believed it actually ran that deep. How deep does it run? We don't know. And chances are that we nev- er will. Why do you say that? Oh, maybe because of the Maltese archipel- ago's historic tendency towards omerta' around these things? Maybe because an already embattled politi- cal class who may not wish to rock its own boat, despite the classic tribal- ism still reigning supreme? But that's just armchair cynicism. Surely we can muster more passion than all of that for something that looks so fundamentally egregious? I guess we could, but there's a lot going around keeping us distracted: from the Film Commission/Tourism Ministry's double-speak about the Hollywood cash rebate, to large- scale end-of-summer events taking up column- and head-space, down to ongoing headaches with over- stuffed and badly timed roadworks causing daily traffic gridlocks... Though I'm fairly certain that peo- ple suffering from genuine disabili- ties are more than irked at this state of affairs. They may very well be, but one needs to ask whether there exists a clear and coherent way for their voices to be heard, in what is increasingly becoming a cacophony of preening and grandstanding for the benefit of the status quo. Were we better off before? At least the current government has made strides in civil liberties, which pre- sumably implies that a more diverse amount of people are getting a slice of the government-aid pie. I don't think nostalgia or its direct opposite are of any use to us here, frankly. And now that you mention it, there is something 'old school' to a bene- fits racket. Yes, it's all about the illicit movements of local monies, locally. A refreshing change from all of the offshore banking drama that has characterised this latter-day phase of Maltese political corruption. Wanna take bets on whether some- one else will resign on the back of this? That would be as baseless an economic activity as anything im- plied in the racket drama itself. Do say: "The erosion of trust in gov- ernment that such a case engenders is not to be sniffed at. Justice needs to be seen to have been done, and fast." Don't say: "The news cycle around this whole thing was really edu- cational. I'd always assumed that 'benefits' were perks every citizen was privy to, like that bowl of mints in corporate waiting rooms. You shouldn't hoard them all for your- self, but really and truly there's no hard-and-fast rule that's stopping you." No. 209 - I Came In Like A Racketball RAPHAEL VASSALLO What's the point of 'National Strategy Plans'... if we never actually implement any of them? PAGES 10 - 11 MICHAEL FALZON Inflation here to stay PAGE 7 Silvio Grixti