Reference is made to the recent articles in the press with regards to the Equal Partners Foundation. A few points of clarification are required since certain inaccuracies have been noted.
In 2003 Equal Partners Foundation was awarded a three-year contract to offer a therapeutic agriculture based project called Franco Si. The sum allocated for the duration of the project totalled Lm19,200. As with all projects of this kind, specific outputs were agreed to and contracted for with Government.
However, after a year it was noted that the agreed outputs were not being reached and that detailed financial statements and other project details were not forwarded to the Non Governmental Organisation (NGO) Liaison Unit within the Department for Social Welfare Standards, Ministry for the Family and Social Solidarity, as was contractually required.
For these reasons the contract was terminated in 2005.
This year, following contact between the Department and Equal Partners, the NGO Liaison Unit forwarded an application for proposals for funding to Equal Partners.
However, to date Equal Partners have not applied for funding from the 2008 budget allocated to NGOs.
Dr Kenneth Grech
Director Social Welfare Standards
Chairperson, NGO Project Selection Committee
I have perused Alternattiva Demokratika’s (AD) declaration of principles and issues, which, they opine, need to be urgently addressed, and with which I fully agree and endorse.
They speak with an open mind and always call a spade, a spade. What is better than the truth? I feel so disgusted that the duopoly ruling our nation has consolidated its corrupt foothold in a country that can otherwise be such a lovely place to live in – albeit with hard work to rectify the weird mentality gripping the way of thinking of sections of the electorate. Some say that the people get what they deserve. But it is the present regime, which is the perpetrator. It is guilty of betrayal, mismanagement, irresponsibility, and sheer manipulation just like Old and New Labour – hence my complete disconnection with anything branded MLPN. I would say that MP does no longer stand for Member of Parliament, but for Manipulator and Parasite.
I wish to mention the lack of professionalism in the police force... no adequate training, no awareness of the law, and no respectful rapport with the citizen. What is worse is that many in the corps shield the unruly section of the population, the arrogant contractors and the traffic code offenders. This also applies to many traffic wardens. Hence, law enforcement in Malta is a paradox, to say the least. Some university lecturers are themselves the culprits of egoistic and selfish attitudes with students... delivering the mentality that they are there only for the beer, portraying a nonchalance mentality. University students are fed parochial breakfast here. No overseas exposure is given to a large percentage of our up-and-coming young generation, unless their parents are wealthy or politically rewarded. Hence, the professional section of the populace is itself rendering the system ineffectual, causing more harm than good to the fabric of society, and, perhaps unknowingly, abetting the corrupt foundation.
We have to inspire in our society a sense of good values, starting from kindergarten and right through to university, without fail. To do this, we need to address the rot in the minds of many grown-ups, and this can be achieved by strict adherence of the law. I am a believer in all that is spiritual, but we must learn to give to Caesar what is Caesar’s, and to God what is God’s. State and Church should be distinct and we need to refrain from using the Church as a platform for political ends – and, obviously, vice versa. I do not wish to be misunderstood, however. God should always be in our midst and in our decisions, but to enact a law authorising a politician to play with our souls is medieval, not to say devious and incongruous. Take divorce as an example. I morally do not agree with it, however I can never accept to be patronised and condescended by anyone mortal.
I would love to see all of us stand and be counted. This requires valour and righteousness. This should also lead us to voice our honest opinion locally and even in international fora. So much suffering – mental and physical – is ongoing in other countries, too, whilst our ministers sit on the fence and watch, until they decide it suits them to cry foul and use such horrifying acts as trump cards in the foreign arena. How small are the brains of such persons who hide under the diplomatic shroud!
I personally have written the Nationalist Party (PN) off to the scrap heap. I have always been a blue voter. That was until a couple of years ago, when I realised that there is no distinction between the two sets of politicians drinking at our parliament’s bar, except for their logos and the colours of their masks.
My reason for not voting AD in the last elections was that Malta needed a strong vote for the ‘yes’ camp to join the European Union in the hope of a more democratic upshot, apart from the obvious and proven economic gains. I am cognisant of the fact that AD was also on the front line for a ‘yes’ vote. The MLP, led by a stubborn loser, chose to challenge the then outgoing Nationalist administration’s hard won negotiations for membership in the EU, and AD’s positive and substantial input in MEUSAC. Of course, how could the public know how influential AD was in our most recent huge achievement, if the monopolised media doctored news footage to remove AD’s leaders from news conferences with the then prime minister and the constituted bodies?
The longest serving opposition leader used a veritably irrational strategy and based his EU membership hostility on the result of those elections. The PN had to pay the price for going to bed with the Labour Party, months earlier, to oust AD from a highly possible scenario of gaining a seat in parliament. The result was that AD’s voter was transformed into a fourth-class citizen at the stroke of a pen, as his ballot was, and is, worth only 25% of the blue and the red voter’s vote. The price the PN paid was that it had to call a referendum a month later, thereby prolonging the political antagonism resulting in ominous effects on the economy and on the social fibre.
The PN botched it again a couple of months ago to spite the differing citizen – so much for ‘the citizen comes first’ hype. Our present regime has also managed to ignore even Brussels, at times - in an effort to conserve votes. The Pharisees are working hard to dodge a third party again – pray that they fail, for the nation’s sake. It is difficult to entice newcomers both as followers as well as candidates to a party that speaks out the truth. Many are so immersed in corrupt practices that they are simply aloof and frightened to show their true feelings. Perhaps they would wake up one day to find out that happiness is most important in life, not greed for wealth or status.
Toddlers act irresponsibly at times and blame their parents for scolding them, and they do not favour mum and dad at punishing times, little realising that values are vital for their good upbringing. However, grown-ups using deviousness should never be excused in any society. How more harmful it is, logically, that parents teach shadiness to their children! Corrupt leaders are like dishonest parents – dubious, suspicious, deceitful, self-centred and egocentric making a stratagem of our culture. They should be the first to be penalized – politically stopping them from passing on their corrupt and distorted paradigm to our youngsters.
Jo Said
Selmun
Allow me to reply to the letter ‘National broadcasting under Sant and Gonzi’ by correspondent Eddy Privitera (MaltaToday Midweek, 5 December), by pointing out that irrespectively of what he mistakenly claimed, any correspondent enjoys the legal right of reply if they were previously mentioned in an article or in a letter to the press.
One can ask whether the correspondent, whilst pretending to be a socialist champion of free speech, was attempting to curtail my fundamental right to freedom of expression by complaining that my letters to the press are ‘published in double-quick time’.
That this was a deliberate falsehood can be confirmed by taking a look at the local press as from 12 June, 1971 up to 8 May, 1987, when in his frequently published articles, the correspondent regularly used to justify the obscenities then perpetrated by Dom Mintoff’s minority Labour government, foremost amongst which was when, on 26 April 1982, House of Representatives Speaker Daniel Micallef declared 31 Nationalist parliamentary seats to be vacant; and when as from September 1985 up to May 1986, then Xandir Malta head Toni Pellegrini ordered that Eddie Fenech Adami’s name never be mentioned on State broadcasting.
Neither correspondent nor Alfred Sant ever protested against these episodes and voters would do well to bear in mind that, as from 1984 up to 1988, Alfred Sant was president of the MLP.
Correspondent Eddy Privitera is all in favour of the free press, of freedom of expression, and of the right of association only when the MLP is in Opposition.
Edward Torpiano
Floriana
