The KullĦadd newspaper recently published an article which had one clear motivation. Its opening comment was that Jason Azzopardi has been filing requests for magisterial inquiries “as if they were cheesecakes (pastizzi)”.

As expected, the PBS Sunday morning Ħadd l-Aħbar made sure to highlight this nonsense piece of journalism.

The sum facts as reported were that Azzopardi was the 2012 cabinet member responsible for the Lands Department when it granted a government property on temporary encroachment terms to the brother of a Lands Department employee who was a Nationalist councillor.

The ongoing relevance wrote the journalist, was that the department has, since the change of government in 2013, failed to collect €21,000 due under the encroachment agreement terms. The insinuation is that this is Azzopardi’s fault and not that of the three of four subsequent ministers.  

The article then refers to the employee in question as having once been convicted of stealing a handbag.  It then throws in the Löwenbräu case stating how Azzopardi lost a libel court action on the basis that a minister is always politically accountable for what goes on in his ministry. A good rule which has recently been conveniently forgotten.

This is as far as the accusations can go. If he was corrupt, you can be sure that Azzopardi would have been prosecuted by any one of the seven puppet police commissioners that served since 2013. But they could never find a reason to even investigate him about anything at all.

The truth is that Azzopardi never opened a secret offshore company in Dubai or in Panama. No one can point to him enjoying a new overnight-acquired enormous wealth or an unexplainable luxurious millionaire lifestyle. He never held a government legal advisory post which gave him the means to buy and maintain a luxury yacht.

He was never caught creating fake jobs for new love interests and he never was appointed to four concurrent government “consultancy” appointments to buy his silence.

Jason Azzopardi never opened a secret offshore company in Dubai or in Panama- Eddie Aquilina

After his political career, he did not suddenly begin receiving a monthly sum equivalent to a year’s worker’s salary from a Swiss company directly connected to the biggest theft of taxpayer monies ever seen in these islands.

The reality is that Azzopardi and his fellow anti-corruption activists are a real and serious threat to those who have hijacked the Labour Party.

The only answer Prime Minister Robert Abela has left to combat the magisterial findings of evidence of corruption are his personal counterattacks. These consist of ridicule, then innuendo and, finally, accusing dissenters and activists of being “extremists” and “political terrorists”.   

In his New Year message, Abela urged us to seek unity over resentment. He has often said that his ministers deserve not our anger but a second chance. And he believes in a rehabilitation process of gifting them government-paid consultancies to keep the farm running smoothly. 

It seems we should not resent the fact, for example, that the 2023 Euro Pride event exceeded its original €2.5 million budget by 86 per cent and cost a total of €4.6 million, without proper financial records, procurement or invoicing documentation. 

The Labour Party will try to convince you that the Nationalist Party is “just as corrupt” and, therefore, you have no choice. That lie is its only hope of survival.

A gentle reminder to all that Malta needs saving.

Eddie Aquilina