Disclosure and closure

Monday morning, and just my luck, I bought a copy of the Herald Tribune (and some magazines). That is what I usually do when I am at an airport and killing time in the effort to return to Malta.

There, in my face, a John Dalli story with a Bahamas twist.

"Jesus Christ, not again."

I had not heard the story and said to myself, "Just great."

A friend sent an SMS: "Either he is the unluckiest person in the world or a bloody idiot."

I made a few phone calls and out came the unofficial explanation of the Bahamas trip.

It still did not look good.

Why John Dalli had failed to disclose such a meeting beats me. I find equally puzzling the fact that he did not tell the prime minister about it.

But with the front-page story in today's Midweek issue and the 'declarations' made by Dalli, I would be willing to give the man yet another benefit of the doubt.

If a cat has nine lives, so does John Dalli.

As expected the Times of Malta journalist had a field day, and the Queen of Bile lost no opportunity to make a killing after such a horrible time recovering from losing Lou Bondì as her bosom friend.

Mr Mark Micallef insinuated, interestingly, that Dalli had made the Bahamas travel plan after a telephone conversation with Silvio Zammit on 6 July 2012. The only problem is that it was made on 3 July.

The two cases (of OLAF and the Bahamas) are unrelated, but obviously a story is always a story. And the fact that Dalli flew to the Bahamas, not Lourdes, is the story. The Bahamas, as we all know, is synonymous with money and tax evasion - hence the story.

Nonetheless, that John Dalli failed to disclose the trip is of concern. Either he does not appreciate how serious the OLAF episode was or else he is living on another planet.

That he says he is helping out in a charity organisation based in the Bahamas also raises suspicions. But he is adamant that this is the case and that he will reveal the real sources.

If I were Dalli, I would have avoided all this hassle, but then he has always been as stubborn as an ox. He will need to divulge his charity work in more detail if he wants to kill the negative perceptions.

That the Queen of Bile has had multiple fake orgasms from Dalli's ills is to be expected. I believe readers should be reminded that her first clash with the man took place years ago, when she represented (in her role as a publicist) an American company that wanted to buy the MIA.

Dalli would have nothing of the sort, and what followed then was a crusade that continues today. The Queen could never forgive Dalli for having denied her such a lucrative project.

John Dalli is a very capable man but compensates for this with utter naivety and the inability to appreciate the implications of all his actions - especially when it comes to public perception.

One last thought: please do not underestimate the ruthlessness of the European Commission in light of Dalli's battle against Barroso and further still, the influence of the tobacco industry on what happens in the press.

There is a lot at stake here, so jumping to conclusions best avoided at this point.

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It is about time we start looking at the Security Service debate by taking a very long, hard look at the past. I mean at the way the Security Service was run under Godfrey Scicluna and how it could have acted contrary to its statute. I can imagine a few investigative stories that would shed light on the real story of Malta's Security Service.