Wake-up call

Malta’s daily newspapers and NET TV have finally woken up to the corruption cases of the not-too-recent past.

It should have happened earlier, but a measure of trepidation and anxiety has kept their journalists under wraps.

When finally the facts were revealed in court, the same newspapers chose to carry the story.

But reportage alone is not good enough. What is needed is proper investigation.

As we said the other week, the fundamental question is this: why did the corruption and fraud carry on under the Nationalist government in 1987?

The reasons are unclear.

What is evident is that the PN administration, led by the incumbent Prime Minister, sat back and failed to address the continuing fraud and deceit at Mid Med Bank. True, it was not as blatant as before, but it still took place.

How else could property that was at the centre of court procedures be utilised as security?

Many individuals are of the opinion that the corruption cancer is restricted to the Labour Party, as if the MLP is genetically disposed to practise corruption and make it work.

This is not the case. Our system provides the ideal habitat for those who fancy raking in vast amounts of money by illicit means.

This government has done nothing to address the situation: it has talked and talked but done little if anything else.

There have been others who have raised the spectre of corruption but they too have lost heart or worse still immersed themselves in the whirlpool and become the predator rather than the prey.

A failed boycott strategy

That the MLP guns have been pointed at Xarabank and Bondi plus is not news. For months now, venom has been spat on the airwaves against Joe (Peppi) Azzopardi and Lou Bondi.

Labour Party officials, mayors, candidates and members of parliament turned down invitations to discuss political issues.

Just when everybody thought that the strategy was working, the Broadcasting Authority survey showed that Xarabank broke all audience records and Bondi plus outshone Super One’s competing programme Team.

Not only did the boycott fail but the survey results showed that the audience rating for Xarabank reached an all time record unparalleled by any other programme.

The BA survey spells out two things clearly. First, the Labour Party’s strategy has failed miserably.

And secondly, people are not the morons politicians imagine them to be. With absolutely no valid reason to follow the boycott directive people just continued to zap on to Xarabank and Bondi.

MLP spin doctors know all too well that attacking the media is counter-productive in the long term. But there again, rationality must have been put aside to make way for the stubborn attitude of the powerful few.

And they got the answer. A huge thumbs down.

In the wake of what is probably the most intensive political campaign, the Labour Party cannot afford to make enemies out of the media. The slogan, ‘If you can’t beat them join them’ might better suit the MLP’s cause.