Gatt turns down resignation from brain behind failed bus reform
Over €57 million in payouts to old bus owners
Manuel Delia – transport minister Austin Gatt’s right-hand man and a new PN candidate for the south –has offered his resignation after the appalling bus reform and its ensuring backlash on his minister.
Gatt, who has said he will resign if he loses a vote of no confidence moved by Labour and which is expected to see Nationalist backbencher Franco Debono abstain on the motion, has asked Delia to stay on.
Gatt informed the party executive last week that he had refused to accept Delia’s resignation.
The bumptious Delia, a former student leader who protest the cuts in university stipends by the Alfred Sant government in 1997, has been credited with the bus reform route disaster.
The bus reform has led backbencher Franco Debono to call for political responsibility to be shouldered by Gatt.
This came after a motion for censure was moved by the Labour Party calling on Gatt to resign.
Late last week, Gatt announced that 36 new buses would be added to the Arriva bus fleet, but they would not be air-conditioned and they would not have the same emission standards as the present Arriva buses.
Prior to the reform, the Minister admitted that €400,000 had been paid to consultants involved in the transport reform.
One such consultant was lawyer and Natinonalist candidate Georg Sapiano, who was paid €110,000 for consultancy services regarding public transport in 2009.
And apart from the consultancies, the government paid out €54 million to former bus owners as a payout for the reform, of which €3,120,000 went to bus owners in Gozo.
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To the administrator of this portal, may I kindly ask the following question:
Can you possibly list the number of "phony" resignations that have been presented by ministers and other people in authority to their respective
direct superiors and how many of these have been eventually accepted?
I don't want to be presumptuous but I have a feeling that the answer is NIL, ZERO, ZILCH, NESSUNO, HADD.
As I always say, it would be funny if it weren't tragic.
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that headline is meant to be a 'tongue in cheek' joke...yes?
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These situations only happen in Malta and in my opinion and that of many ...IT IS A DISGRACE ...end of story !!! . They should call these so called politicians and advisors and the rest of the gang at Transport Malta who are living the high life thanks to our taxes ...THE UNTOUCHABLES !!!! Do we have a Prime Minister running the country or does Austin Gatt do f..k all ?
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Hopefully the motion will not pass, this idiot will be kept there and PN will definitely loose the next election. They will have around 2 more years sucking and taxing.
IF the motion passes PN will win the next election head on.
Anyway no matter what... even if PL wins next election, it can do nothing now. Might as well stay where it is.... too much of a mess that its near impossible to fix.
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IS THE WANKER HAVING ANY SLEEPLESS NIGHTS? LETS SEE HOW MUCH BALLS FRANCO DEBONO GOT.
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Even crocodiles protect tgheir offsprings.
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Damage control which isn't working.
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@Micei
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You talk about the bad old days of Labour – looks like you’ve been brainwashed by PN’s re-writing of history.
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Bad old Labour left Government with a surplus of some LM 400 miilion – big money in those days. If anything, old Labour was a miser rather than a spendthrift. You say old Labour took whatever it wanted – funny how PN never held any Labour Minister accountable, even though they had a very comprehensive investigation against the late Lorry Sant.
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Have you ever asked yourself why they let the whole thing become prescribed? Was it done on purpose to protect Lorry Sant (not likely) or was it because it had all been an elaborate case of character assassination?
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Old Labour gave us the social service network that we have today – anything from compulsory and free education to the decriminalization of homosexuality between consenting adults.
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Other very important success included the instilling of national pride in being Maltese – unlike today where we are the laggards in every EU statistic except obesity, diabetics, , the failing education system and so on.
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As for new Labour, what the hell do you expect them to do – physically throw Gatt and his lapdogs out of their luxury offices?
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Labour has been critical of the whole system since day one, but at the end of the day, it is government that ahs to remedy the situation, not the opposition.
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People need to start learning to help themselves – just look at the protests over the last few weeks in the US and most European countries.
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Yet, where are the Maltese?
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I feel rage at the sheer waste of money these so called ministers and their lackeys are throwing away. They remind me of bad old labour in the last few days before their end. Whereas Labour used to spit in your face and physically abuse the system and take what they want , in the case of the PN they give each other consultancies worth hundreds of thousands of euros and they havent got the foggiest of what they are on about and try to make you think thank God they are still around!!!. Small wonder the wannabe prime minister with the same car and all runs around with a gas guzzler. Doing nothing and getting paid. And paying foreigners to do things that any illiterate bus driver from the old system would have gladly done for nothing and well unlike the equally idiotic and asshole Delia who presented himself like some big head who knew all it takes about bus routes. And the top wanker had the audacity to say that they were too avant garde. Does this mean that the popolin is a backward bunch Fucking Wanker? That girl deserves a medal for giving you the best title flok gieh ir republica. You deserve no less. My only sadness is that the impotent and absolutely worthless Labour lot are sitting on the fence playing for time waiting for their win of an estimated 15 to 20,000 majority win.
Sadly you have whisked away enough money to sustain you and three generations of mini wankers Gatt but as we say in Maltese ma tgawdihx il mishut.
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This has been a very costly changeover Mr.GATT.
Is it possible you did not pick up any breadcrumbs during this deal ?
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Hope we have no more BRIANS like this cause we would go mad.
In anycase this resignation is a mise en scene. Reminds me of the time when EFA was found guilty of political discrimination and offered his resignation. Wonders of wonder this was turned down by the then President, Dr Ugo Mifsud Bonnici, ex PN minister!
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Test
Luke Camilleri •
Brain? Gatt called delia a "BRAIN" ?
I'D CALL HIM AN ASSHOLE!
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If gatt goes on Friday, so does delia.
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What a farce reading this article. Ill-performed Ministers continue to 'reign' dangerously their Ministries whilst a poor clerk in the civil service is always subjected to ill-treatment if this clerk gets something wrong. Sometimes anarchy is the best for Malta. Ill-performed Ministers should be punished and not staying in their jobs sucking taxpayer monies unending.
