PR-ing the truth away

Alfred Sant's PR series on The Times is the man's weekly confession of the greatest democratic crime that can be perpetrated: denying the truth without blinking and attempting to revise history by the nauseating repetition of the newly created version of "fact".

His Prendi Brindisi (November 10) is one such attempt at historical revision. Dr Sant says: The government "claimed I (Sant) had said the Lm4 million were meant to buy up shareholding in Brindisi. I (Sant) never said anything of the sort".

Oh, didn't he now? He should be telling that to his own party media.

In a report published on the Labour Party's maltastar.com on November 2 at 7.30 p.m. (BOV Rebuts Austin Gatt's Leak Allegation) the following is stated: "BOV has rebutted the allegation made by Minister Austin Gatt that the information Labour leader Alfred Sant has about the Malta Freeport's purchase of shares in the loss making BTI came from the bank".

In a report broadcast on Super One TV on November 1, the following was stated: "Mistoqsi dwar dak li qal il-Ministru Gatt, Sant sostna li qal il-Hadd li ghadda: dwar il-kaz ta' l-erba' miljuni kompla billi qal li l-gvern biex jaghmel tajjeb ghax-xiri ta' l-ishma kollha fi Brindisi Terminal f'Awissu li ghadda l-gvern nefaq €10 miljun ohra f'dan il-port. Flus li l-gvern issellef mill-BOV." ("Asked on what Minister Gatt had said, Sant reiterated what he had said last Sunday; he went on to say that on the matter of the four million, to fund the purchase last August of all the shares in Brindisi Terminal, the government spent another €10 million in this port. The government borrowed this money from BOV.")

L-orizzont, in a report it carried on November 4, stated that: "Dan wara li f'attività socjali nhar il-Hadd li ghadda fil-Mellieha, Alfred Sant akkuza lill-gvern li f'Awissu li ghadda l-Freeport Terminal (Malta) xtara l-ishma tal-Brindisi terminal ghas-somma ta' Lm4 miljun meta kullhadd jaf li dan il-port huwa fallut." ("This happened after a social activity last Sunday in Mellieha where Alfred Sant accused the government that last August Freeport terminal (Malta) purchased Brindisi Terminal shares for Lm4 million even though it knew the project was a failure.")

Dr Sant knows he's wrong... now. When presented with the facts, the price of the Brindisi terminal shrank from a scandalous Lm4 million to under Lm150,000 which even he is no longer shocked by.

But would Dr Sant admit he was wrong and pass on to another subject really worth discussing? No he wouldn't. Dr Sant would attempt to rewrite history as witnessed by his own party media and deny having ever got it wrong.

Dr Sant's choice of words in his PR article are Freudian in their exposure of the man's psyche. He calls his own statements on Brindisi terminal as "conjectures". If anyone doubts that that is the word he chooses to describe his own statements, one should really go back to his article before he starts denying ever saying that too.

My dictionary defines "conjecture" as "to infer or arrive at an opinion from incomplete evidence". The evidence in Dr Sant's case is indeed incomplete but not because someone has hidden it from him. The government tabled in Parliament all relevant documents and audited financial statements which, for some reason, Dr Sant did not read probably because truth would embarrass him as he'd learn that:

¤ "yes, the strategy to arrive at a commercial arrangement with Brindisi was elaborated between 1996 and 1998" as he now confesses;

¤ that, contrary to what he states in his article, the joint venture with the now bankrupt Papalini was also sealed during his premiership (then in the failed bid to secure the Taranto contract);

¤ that the first agreement with the now much maligned mayor of Brindisi (he of tangenti fame) was signed by one his ministers, presumably after clearance from Dr Sant himself;

¤ that the present administration did take the corrective action he exhorts when the Brindisi project went sour.

The Brindisi project did go sour. Even though it was Dr Sant's idea, nobody is claiming that Dr Sant is to blame for the fact that it went wrong. Business ventures work sometimes and sometimes they don't. When they don't you have to be grown up enough to minimise the damage and move on.

Hindsight makes everyone a brilliant businessman. Dr Sant's stint at Metalfond, which he personally and single-handedly ran aground, has thought us all how a business should not be run.

Dr Sant's handling of government finances when he set out to fill a financial "hole" and instead managed to enlarge it manifold makes him an expert on heroic financial failures (not to mention the mess he did with the ex-Russian timber carriers... but that is another story).

Brindisi went sour because of bad management on the ground. Brindisi was not managed (mismanaged, rather) by Malta Freeport but by the majority partners Papalini, chosen by the Sant administration. The terminal suffered from a number of inexplicable decisions by its management taken during 2002. The Maltese directors took action as soon as accounts for that year showed that things were not what they should have been. They alerted Malta Freeport which commenced legal action, including action against the management that made a mess of its investment.

Dr Sant is now screeching "conjectures" to the effect that the government has secretly produced guarantees that are yet to be uncovered. No such thing has happened.

What we did do is take over the Brindisi shareholding so that:

¤ the company is not declared bankrupt (and all its €26 million of exposures, almost all of which committed during 2002, are transferred to us);

¤ that it is recapitalised to the lowest acceptable level;

¤ that its loans are refinanced so that its credit is extended;

¤ that its workforce is reduced to what is necessary,

¤ and, finally, if Dr Sant stops being obtuse about this, now that we sold Malta Freeport and no longer need to operate a terminal in Italy, to resell the Brindisi concession to someone else.

In one of his hysterical sermons to his preferred audience of applauding supporters in a kazin (club), Dr Sant invited me to prove he is lying by suing him for libel. This is an old trick. If I did sue him, we'd both have to shut up about this for the next four years while the case is sub judice. That leaves him a political winner, even if the legal outcome of a libel suit would not favour him. When silence abruptly falls on the case, the wrong impressions he would have parroted would stick and the government would be unable to reply. When the case is won and lost it would be too late to really make any political difference.

He shut me up with one such libel suit which he opened against me when he was Prime Minister in 1998 and the case is still dragging on in the Court of Appeal six years later (contrary to what Super One is saying, by the way).

No Dr Sant, we're in the business of politics. If you speak untruths on the newspapers, I will reply in the newspapers. You cannot be allowed to PR the truth away.