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We are all remorseful that Zeppi l-Hafi is residing at Kordin. Those who are probably feeling mortified by the fact that he is behind bars – where he rightly belongs – are those journalists who over the years concocted stories portraying Zeppi as the man with the halo.
When Meinrad Calleja, no angel himself, was being vilified, Zeppi was presented as the local version of Maria Goretti with sideburns.
Now, one journalist who was caught on celluloid drinking and gossiping to Zeppi was a certain Jesmond Bonello.
Until a few months ago a journalist with the Times, Bonello has of late turned to being God’s gift to “communications strategy”.
He has now appeared as the communications advisor in the Euro Changeover Committee, a special ‘advisory’ appearance for the CHOGM task force, and now through his company Contenthouse, which is as old as my eight-month-old guinea pig, he has won a contract with an allocated budget of 140,000 euros at the George Pullicino ministry.
Now Jes, as he is affectionately known, is not unknown in the media world. He was, was he not, the next best thing to being Richard Cachia Caruana’s ventriloquist. Anyone who wishes to read through the archives at the Independent and the Times were he later worked can easily confirm that what I am saying is not part of my vivid imagination.
In a campaign – the euro campaign – that is supposed to bring people from all walks of life together to embrace the change, Joe F X Zahra, the man handpicked to do the job, sees nothing improper in having ‘partisan’ Jes take care of communications for the NECC.
Neither does it seem that Minister Frendo has a problem with Jes at CHOGM, nor does Minister Pullicino at the agriculture ministry.
In the space of a month, super Jes has offered his services in the diverse fields of the Commonwealth, the euro and now, agriculture. All as if, since the start of his illustrious career as a Radio 101 reporter alongside Simon Busuttil and Ivan Camilleri, he now surpasses the prophetic capabilities of Reverend Peter Serracino Inglott who in his heyday would be the expert on anything and anyone, from solar panels to Nationalist party policies.
Now in the days when some people were either studying in Rome or Toronto, and we the lesser mortals were cooped up on this small island force-fed a diet of Eileen Montesin programmes poking fun at Eddie, there was such a thing called Rose.
No, not the flower. It was a company in communications and advertising that was blatantly owned by Labour and the GWU. At the time, the PN media could not go to sleep. It would hit out and leave no stone unturned making it abundantly clear that all the communications and advertising commission cake was being gobbled up by one side.
But what we are seeing today is far worse. Rose, with all its limitations, was represented by people with experience. Jes’s experience is not conditioned. It is apparently supreme to all the other age-old agencies who have poured thousands of hours, hundreds of thousands of liri into expertise and resources and training and have a portfolio that towers over Jes’s CV as the Hilton towers over the unfortunate listed buildings at Paceville.
But to the professionals, this is all irrelevant! He is close and has worked with Simon Busuttil, the would-be socialist who works as a lawyer and a MEP at the same time. He is buddy buddy with Richard Cachia Caruana, the cabinet minister who refuses to be interviewed, and is the friend of Ivan Camilleri, needless to say, Malta’s Bernstein.
Joe Zahra, who likes to place an F X between his name and surname to distinguish from his namesake who has returned to work for his former company, knows that the man that has been chosen for three years to smoothen things out in the communications world is as trusted as I would be with a listening device in the Monday morning cabinet room.
The finest answer to my queries was however George Pullicino’s, who insisted that he did not know that Jes’s company Contenthouse had won a contract of 140,000 euros with his ministry.
I have to pinch myself at this point, to make myself accept as true such a statement. There is nothing wrong with anyone leaving a job to start up a project and become a capitalist. This is a free world, but it is not a reasonable world.
And this is not a society which is best described as a level playing field. To believe that Jes is a whiz kid is to believe that I am an avowed celibate. And in this society it is becoming abundantly clear that if you germinate in the wrong garden patch then the next best thing to do with yourself is throw away more money and hope to win the Super Five.
Of course, Joe F X Zahra could not recall what Jes’s three-year contract sums up to. Amnesia is becoming a nationwide calamity and tends to hit everyone at the appropriate time. No problem, after all it is not Joe F X Zahra’s money but mine, yours and everyone else’s.
As I write this piece, Alfred Sant is holding a press conference explaining that it is unacceptable that PBS is catering for the likes of you know whom. The new names he points out are Pierre Portelli and Chris Scicluna. Just in case you did not know, one is the former NET head of news and campaign manager for Dr Gonzi’s party leadership bid, whilst the latter is Minister Frendo’s communications coordinator – who is more often than not always too busy to answer questions for the press but appears to have all the time in the world for his PBS programme.
Alfred Sant hit the nail on the head about PBS being a closed shop. But then we have this vision that PBS under Labour would be Bedingfieldplus on a Tuesday and Xarabank with Ray Azzopardi on a Friday, and l-iSpjun with Julia Farrugia.
Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi promised a new way of politics. We’re still waiting.
In parliament this week, Austin Gatt reminded us that Louis Grech, as chairman of Air Malta, earned Lm60,000 and had a Lm20,000 credit on his company credit card.
We listen, eyes wide open and mouth shut. I have said this before: for heaven’s sake, if anyone needs scolding and reminding, it is Austin. Louis Grech operated under Josef Bonnici, a PN minister renowned for his Galapagos tortoise decision-making powers.
If there is anyone to blame, surely it is not only the salon socialist Louis Grech, who likes the good life, but Josef Bonnici. Mr Bonnici must have suffered tremendously for having being exiled by his government to take up a super paid auditor’s job in Luxembourg – he is probably looking forward to return to his university job, kindly preserved by the University authorities just in case Josef plunges below the poverty line.
sbalzan@mediatoday.com.mt
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