|
One day in 1986 my secretary at Air Malta came to my office to tell me that a Mr Alfred Delia was asking to speak with me. Ushered in, Mr Delia, flamboyantly attired yet very prim and proper in his behaviour, introduced himself as the director of Dar Speranza fl’ Inkapacitati. Smooth as they come, he gave me a full account of his philanthropic work and underscored that his institution depended solely on voluntary work and people’s donations. In the end Mr Delia spelled out the reason for his visit to my office, to ask for a number of free tickets which we donated without much hesitation.
During a management meeting a few days later, the late managing director of Air Malta gave me a right dressing down for being so naive and fallen for the trap of a hypocritical pretender. At that juncture I could not understand how the managing director, a very kind-hearted person could be so clinical to make such sweeping statements and pass negative judgment on any person.
A few weeks after this episode, an attractive young girl showed up at my office to hand me an invitation for drinks at the Phoenicia ballroom, the occasion was to show gratitude to benefactors. When I got at the venue early in the afternoon I could not understand how a charitable institution could have afforded such a grand gala of food and drink which marathon started with a big buffet brunch and lasted until very late at night. That experience gave me a great deal of food for thought and compelled me to do some basic research about that institution.
There were very few ordinary people whom I knew then who heard of Dar Speranza. However a sizeable number of businessmen knew Alfred Delia and spoke highly about his work. Some of them told me that they were regular contributors to his noble cause, strangely enough however, none of them had ever visited his facilities.
During the period of my short relationship with Mr Delia, on more than one occasion, he would invite me to visit ‘the institute’. A polite telephone call always followed to apologise as he had to cancel the visit due to his alleged pressing charitable assignments and I never got to see his so called very big house converted into an institute cum clinic at Birkirkara.
It was indeed an utter surprise for me when I read your scoops on two consecutive Sundays to find out that after twenty years this charity sham was still going on and it had to be MaltaToday to open the can of worms and air the fraudulent tricks. Well done, Karl Schembri. Shame on the supposedly competent authorities.
Charles J Buttigieg
Mellieha
|
