Mr Fix It

I had taken some black and white pictures of the half finished construction on the Rabat road. Tony Mallia sat at his desk at the Stamperija and told me that he would publish them.

Another obscene construction site by his illustrious 'Il-Lay Lay' and Piju Camilleri, two Lorry Sant 'acquaintances. That was the bad old eighties.  The Democrat now defunct was then a English language newspaper published by the Nationalist party. Then, it was dangerous and sexy to be with the PN.

It was good to be on the other side of the border.

That was 1985.

In 1987 works on the Lay Lay construction were stopped by the new government.

The other day I stopped at the petrol station next to Mount Carmel hospital. I had not driven down the road for ages and was shocked to see the new petrol station. The concession to build in an outside development zone (ODZ) was issued to a well-known family with political connections. The connections were unlike that of Il-Lay Lay. Il-Lay Lay was close to the Labour government - this guy appears to have been close to the Nationalists. There's no proof that he had his permit okayed because of his politics, but all ODZ permits were sanctioned after intense pressure from the applicants. In this country of ours, it's not such a big deal.

What is a big deal is that thirty years down the line, the name 'Lay Lay' means nothing. The guy has been replaced by a new breed of contractors and developers, who change their political allegiance according to their money projects.

All politicians will deny that there is political patronage, but this is an integral part of our political culture today.

Which of course drives me to the obsession of being Mr Fix It.

And Mr Fix It in this scenario is, of course, Joseph Muscat. He has the great ability of securing the allegiance and the silence of his adversaries by investing in their lustful desire for some pocket money (my words, of course).

But is it not strange to see Mark Anthony Falzon first describe his removal from the Ornis Committee as a move dictated by "Muscat's pogrom" and then to accept to stand as chairman of the Ornis committee.

Now hang on a minute, lest I be misunderstood: I do not think for a minute that Falzon is unsuitable for the job. I really think he has all the qualifications for the job.  Even though I find him - what's the word? - oh, yes: pedantic!

Perhaps instead of serving as Ornis chairman, he should join everyone else and collect signatures to block spring hunting, which I'm sure he opposes.

But what strikes me as a pertinent observation is that no one it seems have any self-respect.

I mean just look at Lou Bondi... after having spent all his time accusing MaltaToday of being the 'MaltaMLPToday' he goes off and accepts to be remunerated for his job by Labour.

Then, of course, none of the Nationalist crowd believed that he would have crossed the border.

Lou Bondi and Falzon and now Godwin Grima - more on him later - is part of Mr Fix It's approach to solutions.

The latest decision by Muscat (to appoint Godwin Grima as a regulator for citizenship), did not go down well with the Nationalists. Even though Mr Grima was one of the most trusted civil servants in the Gonzi administration.

Ronnie Pellegrini was yesterday rubbishing on Facebook those who proposed Mr Grima.

The reason being that in politics everyone is dispensable,  and everyone has a price, if they decides to embrace the party.

On citizenship, in my view the PN opposition is rather superficial. You either accept it or object to it.

In my view, offering up citizenship for any price is wrong.

The PN try very hard to give the impression that they have better solutions to this citizenship scheme. But really, when you see the residence permits they issued while they were in government, I begin to wonder whether they can reasonably offer a better alternative.

Which is why the Mr Fix It approach may sometimes backfire.

Surely, Joseph Muscat's approach is miles away from the Mintoffian style.

In Dom Mintoff's days, if you were married to foreigner, you could not purchase a property if you did not have the signature of the Minister of Finance.

Now I do not want to personalise the argument, but when I married in 1987 I could not purchase a property unless sanctioned by the finance minister. And the finance minister Wistin Abela refused to sign, so I rented instead. Worse still, because I had a foreign spouse I could not apply for subsidised loan from the Lohombus bank.

Labour has come a long way. 

Perhaps it has ideologically derailed itself in the process.

The truth is that the target for Muscat is to get this through as soon as is possible to allow for money from citizenships to roll in.

The truth is that there are possibly more than 200 potential clients, and this could mean more than €150 million revenue. That would change Muscat's profit and loss in more than way.

Well... that is the story of modern day politics.