Chris Fearne was a victim but it’s Labour’s sleaze that is to blame

What Steward Healthcare tried to do to Chris Fearne was immoral and criminal.

Steward not only spent millions of euros in an attempt to create fictitious stories about Fearne and his personal assistant, Carmen Ciantar, but did so with the intention of getting Fearne out of the way because he was filibustering their attempts to extract more millions from the Maltese government. 

This leader expects the preachy American law enforcement system to come down like a tonne of bricks on Steward, an American company, but we also expect the Maltese police to do their job and carry out their own investigation and bring Ralph de la Torre, Armin Ernst and others to book. 

And while we express sympathy with Fearne over this ordeal we cannot overlook one simple fact - this is all the result of the sleaze that a Labour government permitted. 

Bernard Grech is right when he says this latest episode is evidence of a mafia state. Let us make no mistake about it: Steward Healthcare was brought to Malta by Joseph Muscat, Konrad Mizzi and Keith Schembri with the acquiescence of a Labour Cabinet, including Fearne, who called them ‘the real deal’, that ignored every warning light. 

From obscure investors to secretive side agreements, the warnings were ignored, overlooked, minimised and ridiculed. All the while, promises made were not kept. 

Muscat and his coterie played with fire, got burnt and in the process unleashed hell on the Maltese State. The victims of this wicked and corrupt game were many, not least the public health system. 

Fearne was also a victim of this game, but he should be blaming no one else but his former boss, Joseph Muscat.  

The irony is that the same company that paid millions to private investigators to fabricate dirt on Fearne was the same company that paid money to Swiss firm Accutor that had as its consultants Joseph Muscat, Konrad Mizzi and Keith Schembri after they stepped out of politics. 

All those in Labour, who today are expressing solidarity with Fearne must understand that the only people who did him wrong were the same people they revered just a few weeks ago outside the law courts – Muscat, Schembri and Mizzi. 

Of course, what happened to Fearne was bad. But taxpayers have been cheated long before Steward kicked off its criminal campaign to try and eliminate him. 

The pure and simple facts are: Gozitan patients remain without a state of the art hospital; St Luke’s remains a high-end pigeon loft; Karin Grech is crying out for some serious investment; and promises of medical tourism becoming the next big thing have all but fizzled. And all the while, €400 million of taxpayer money flowed into the pockets of these bastards, who diverted some of that money to try and undermine Fearne and create a ‘political fund’ in Switzerland. 

From conception to its court-forced death the hospitals deal was fraught with obscurity and hidden agendas at every turn. Corruption is not even a strong enough word to describe the big mess Labour created. 

It is this mess that the Labour government – Robert Abela’s government – must atone for. It must redeem itself and apologise to the people for the pitiful situation it has created. 

Abela and Fearne must immediately condemn and publicly disown Muscat. Only when they find the willpower to distance themselves from him can they even start to atone. After all, Abela and Fearne are leader and deputy leader of the Labour Party and they should lead the way. 

Secondly, Abela must withdraw the challenge his government is putting up in the court case initiated by Bernard Grech and Adrian Delia to get back the public funds that were paid to Steward and which were spent illicitly. The Prime Minister can put aside the pretence that Steward did carry out some good investments. He can ask Fearne for advice how some of that investment money was spent – the answer will be anything but positive. 

But maybe, the time is ripe for a clean sweep of the stables to clear out the mafia tentacles that have sunk deep into the Labour government. 

We want normality and peace of mind that the next day will not be another saga of corruption, backstabbing and blackmail. 

We want a government that tackles the daily traffic ordeal; that cares about the erosion of the middle class’s purchasing power; that seeks to seriously enforce legislation in the building industry; that changes planning policies to clip the wings of the construction industry; that ensures law and order prevail in our communities; that invests intelligently in education; that tackles hospital waiting lists and interminable waiting times at A&E; that provides a clear direction towards cleaner energy investments. 

Malta deserves much better than the current swamp it finds itself in.