“But people should know how money is being spent,” the journalist challenged Johann Grech about the film commission’s lavish events. “We always published reports, both the ministry and the commission, about events held. Everything is public,” Grech replied.
Everything is public.
What a joker! What is this? Deadpan humour? Grech had just filed a civil court case to stop the public finding out how much he paid David Walliams out of our taxes.
When the Daphne Caruana Galizia Foundation first asked Grech how much he’d paid Walliams, he simply refused to reply. So it submitted a freedom of information request. Again, Grech’s film commission rejected the request, claiming “the requested documents are subject to legal professional privilege and their disclosure would amount to breach of confidence”.
So the foundation appealed Grech’s rejection with the information and data commissioner. The commissioner was appalled. Grech’s argument for refusing to divulge Walliams’s remuneration was nonsense. He ordered Grech to provide the information requested. Grech refused and went to the tribunal with an appeal to overturn the commissioner’s decision.
The tribunal laughed off Grech’s pathetic arguments. The commissioner’s decision was right. The public has every right to know how much of its money went to Walliams for hosting that single night’s Malta Film Awards. The tribunal ordered Grech to give the Daphne Foundation the information they requested.
Grech still refused. He’s now fighting the data commissioner and the tribunal’s decisions in court using more of our money to stop us finding out what we have a right to know – while claiming “everything is public”.
Nothing about the film commission is public. Grech goes to extreme lengths to conceal the most basic information. He feels above it. He shouldn’t be questioned, shouldn’t be accountable to anybody. Grech has the disdainful swagger of a bad villain from one of his movies.
But he’s not alone. This is a double act. He’s in a comedy duo with Tourism Minister Clayton Bartolo, the master of slapstick. The two of them held a press conference the day after Grech bragged that “everything is public”.
Bartolo and Grech announced that a study they commissioned “factually confirms” that the film rebate scheme “helps” Malta’s economy; but refused to publish that report. The comedy duo announced that the precious study report will remain secret – they won’t make it public, they won’t give journalists a copy, citing “legal advice”. Earlier this week, Bartolo told Times of Malta that a redacted version of the report will be published “in the coming days”.
That wasn’t the only joke of the night from the comedy duo. Bartolo was asked how much the recent Mediterrane Film Festival cost the nation. For that festival, actors and producers were flown to Malta business class, put up in five-star hotels, treated to yacht trips and black tie gala events and chauffeured to all-expenses-paid lunches and parties on the taxpayer’s account.
Grech’s film commission turned down The Shift’s FOI request to reveal the cost of the Mediterrane Film Festival and divulge who attended the lavish gala dinner. That’s because many of them were Labour Party officials and personal friends of Grech – none of them had anything to do with the film industry.
Bartolo also refused to divulge the cost of the festival – the report is “still not finished”, he announced at his press event. But, in July, Bartolo promised the ‘report’ would be finished by the end of September. “A report highlighting the exact cost alongside its value for money will be completed and published within the next three months,” he declared on July 4. Now he’s reneged on that pledge.
Nothing about the film commission is public. Johann Grech goes to extreme lengths to conceal the most basic information- Kevin Cassar
That’s not the first time. He’s repeatedly brought all sorts of excuses to conceal costs of the Malta Film Awards. He promised repeatedly he’d publish the cost – he never did. He simply published a €1.3 million cost for the entire film week but not the cost of the Awards night.
In February 2022, Bartolo declared that the costs of that night were “still being compiled”. When Times of Malta was tired of waiting, it lodged a freedom of information request. Again, Bartolo resorted to his stale joke – “the cost of the film awards is still being compiled”.
Bartolo even told parliament that “the cost is still being compiled”. His sidekick, Grech, rejected the FOI request but promised the Malta Film Awards would be “value for money”. Numerous questions sent to Bartolo and Grech remained unanswered. Eighteen months later, “the cost is still being compiled”.
How much of the €143 million paid to foreign companies stayed in Malta, both were asked at their press conference. Neither answered. But Grech insisted the study they commissioned “is clear on the matter”. The audience burst out laughing.
More hilarity followed. Grech declared that his film industry is the motor of the Maltese economy and, wait for it, “is sustaining hospitals, pensions and education”.
The man hasn’t got a clue.
Film productions contributed €72.7 million to Malta’s economy last year, according to Bartolo. The country spent €1,600 million on health, €1,400 million on pensions and €762 million on education. If every cent of those €72.7 million went on “hospitals, pensions and education” it would cover just 1.9 per cent of the cost.
Malta’s GDP last year was €16,870 million. The film industry contributed just 0.4% to Malta’s economy – a veritable drop in the ocean. Does that sound like the motor of the Maltese economy? Absolutely not but that’s just another joke from Grech.
Or just a miserable attempt to mock MAM president Martin Balzan: “Some people told us we were unfairly taking away money that could be spent on medicine to give to Hollywood – today, it has been proven that it isn’t true,” Grech declared while concealing that ‘report’.
Critics of the film cash rebate were “levelling attacks on Maltese people’s jobs without the professional economic facts to back them up”, Grech insisted.
Only the comedy duo get to see the “professional economic facts”. But they won’t let the rest of us, who paid for that report, see it in full and the duo carry on making jokes at our expense.
Kevin Cassar is a professor of surgery.