Malta needs rebuilding not just change, Adrian Delia says

Opposition Leader Adrian Delia said that simple 'change' of government or a new Labour Prime Minister in January is not enough to tackle the current political crisis and that Malta needs rebuilding. 

"The word 'change' right now is not enough. We need to go deeper than the very foundations of this country and rebuild. An Attorney General who protects private business from giving back our hospitals and a Police Commissioner who protects criminals is surreal. The President himself referred to some people in government as a 'gang of criminals'," Delia said.

Speaking on a NET FM interview on Saturday, Delia said that the government was a criminally responsible administration at this point, contributing to the obstruction of justice and the protection of nefarious enterprise.

Just this week, the Attorney General has passed on a copy of the long sought-for Egrant report to Delia after the country's highest court ordered that the Opposition leader be given a copy.

The Constitutional Appeals Court declared that the Attorney General, not giving Delia a copy after the inquiry's conclusion, amounted to a breach of the PN leader's fundamental freedom of expression and a political imbalance since the Prime Minister had been handed a facsimile.

"The government has known of the contents of that report for over 18 months. The government knew that there was a web of criminality based on that report and didn't do anything about it. That is a crime in itself. Instead of coming down on corruption, the government tried to hide it. The government is criminal," Delia concluded.

For this reason, Delia said, both Deputy Prime Minister Chris Fearne and Labour MP Robert Abela – both campaigning to be the next Prime Minister – are not credible on wanting to effect change when they were part of an administration that closed an eye to corruption.

Delia added that Article 5 of the Constitution grants the power to the President to remove the Prime Minister of his own accord but he has to enjoy the support of two-thirds of the House of Representatives before he can do so.

"The Labour parliamentary group can effect this change, they should do so after swearing under oath to protect this country. They are choosing not to do their job while the European Parliament, the foreign media, and the whole world are saying that Prime Minister Joseph Muscat should resign immediately.

"Fearne and Abela are saying they want to change things if elected leader while they are not effecting the necessary change today. They are liars and they're tricking the electorate. The page won't change with Abela or Fearne as leader, let's not delude ourselves. This government is damaging our country on a daily basis and will continue to do so after January," Delia said.

Delia said that in any normal country, resignations followed scandals of such magnitude, but Malta was far and away from being a normal country. Despite both Fearne and Abela claiming they would remove Police Commissioner Lawrence Cutajar, Delia said, he hadn't resigned of his own accord. Attorney General, Peter Grech, tasked with protecting the constitution but who had in fact breached it, had not resigned either.