Silvio Grixti does not deserve our sympathy

Silvio Grixti is ostensibly only the second politician in Malta to be charged with involvement in a corrupt ring. The other one was former Labour minister Lorry Sant, who was only acquitted of charges for his corrupt land deals in the 1980s because the case against him and others was time-barred. 

Whether Grixti benefited personally from the social benefits racket he masterminded is for the court to determine. But he is accused of forming part of a criminal conspiracy involving Roger Agius, Emmanuel Spagnol, Dustin Caruana, and Luke Saliba, with offences relating to fraud and organised crime. 

Grixti, a family doctor by profession and a former MP, may still be viewed in a positive light by some of his regular patients and former constituents in the Zejtun district. They may also believe that his intentions were good – trying to help people who required a cash boost because they had fallen on hard times. 

And in typical Maltese fashion, even if these people know that what Grixti did was wrong, they may still excuse him because he is a good doctor at heart. 

But irrespective of the understanding Grixti may find in his patients, the plain truth is that he reneged on his duty as an elected member of parliament to uphold the rule of law. 

Grixti was not simply helping constituents who found it difficult to navigate complex bureaucratic situations, or trying to understand why a service or benefit has been denied to them. Grixti was not trying to solve a problem for anyone who may have encountered it, or at the least applying pressure as an elected official for policy to change. 

No, Grixti was part of a scheme that helped undeserving beneficiaries to siphon off taxpayers’ money at the expense of those who truly deserve the severe disability benefit. 

Grixti was not performing a service for his constituents. He was allegedly helping some of them to cheat the system and benefit from money they were never entitled to. 

Grixti does not deserve our sympathy. The charges show he was at the heart of a corrupt scheme and thus breached the trust of voters who elected him to serve them and the country.

But Grixti also breached the trust of fellow medical professionals when he allegedly gave clients forged medical documents to support fake illnesses. Unknowingly to them, medical professionals ended up as victims of this fraudulent scheme. 

Grixti may appear a hero in the eyes of those he helped but the doctor breached the trust of law abiding constituents who expect their MPs to act fairly, within the boundaries of the law and champion causes that benefit the widest possible number of people and not the select few. 

It is good that the police have charged Grixti and others with him who they believe masterminded this corrupt scheme but they must also investigate in earnest whether those who referred people to the Żejtun doctor were also willing participants. 

Did these Labour Party functionaries, ministerial aides and politicians know what Grixti was up to but closed an eye to the abuse because it suited their party in electoral terms? 

The police must try and answer this question by investigating those who may have acted as go-betweens. 

This was a corrupt scheme that saw beneficiaries taking home thousands of euros in benefits while audaciously still going about their daily lives as normal. 

Today, these beneficiaries are crying because they have to give back the money they received through deceit. Instead of taking it out on the rest of society they should redirect their anger at those who led them down a dangerous rabbit hole and in doing so they should understand that they were also willing participants in a corrupt scheme. 

It is law abiding taxpayers and voters who should be angry. It is parents of severely disabled children who should be angry for seeing their children’s condition being abused in a corrupt way. It is deserving adult beneficiaries who should be livid. 

Indeed, it is honest politicians who should be pissed off because one of their own has tarnished their reputation. 

Grixti deserves no one’s sympathy.