If you go to Bari in Italy and swim 300 kilometres as the crow flies across the Adriatic Sea, you’ll get to Montenegro. In all likelihood, you’ll stop to catch your breath a bit before you reach the mainland – on the pristine island of St Mark.
It’s a puny island, with a surface area of 32 hectares. For comparison’s sake, it’s a teeny-weeny bit bigger than Cominotto, that little island just by Comino which at, 25 hectares, stands like a protective arm around the Blue Lagoon.
When you google St Mark’s Island, you’ll get pictures of a lush green blot. That’s because the island is thick set with olive and cypress trees. Its beauty has even earned it a place in ancient Greek mythology where it was described as a gift from Gods, the place Greek soldiers went to, to recover from their wounds after battles. To be sure there’s something definitely divine about it – and together with its neighbour island St Michael’s, makes up the Archipelago of the Holy Archangels.
In the 1960s and 1970s, this island was run by a French company that organised off-grid holidays for people who wanted to immerse themselves in the silence of untouched, secluded nature. Visitors stayed in little wooden huts on stilts and, despite there being no water and electricity, basked in this little garden of Eden.
In the noughties it was bought by a Russian company favoured by Putin, Metropol Group. They took one look at the island and scrunched their faces. “Vhat is this? Vhere is Gucci shop?!”
They went to the drawing board and came up with a plan: “We do six-star hotel. And marina for big yachts. We build 70 villas with swimming pools on edge of sea. We build shopping boutiques in centre of island. We build modern restaurants. And we put deckchairs on beaches for tourists. Zat is the idea.”
But then came the financial crisis of 2008, and Putin’s friends decided to shelf their plans, and seek external investors. Finally, more than a decade later, a prospective buyer has turned up, thanks to friends of friends. He comes from a pint-size village, in wee archipelago, with a €100 million to spend. And his name is Joseph Portelli, Gozo’s very own ‘godfather’.
What does Malta and Montenegro have in common, you may ask? Well, plenty it seems. There’s a windfarm there, which Enemalta bought with our taxes at an exorbitant price, and which was inaugurated by former Prime Minister Joseph Muscat before he fell in disgrace. Then there’s the fact that Muscat’s friend, Yorgen Fenech, who is also Daphne Caruana Galizia’s murder suspect, made a multi-million cut out of this same Montenegro wind farm deal. And now, construction-magnate-with-no-holds-barred Portelli, is the prospective buyer of one of their islands, while at the same time, lobbying for Muscat’s latest coveted position in the Malta Football Association. Bless, all peas in a corrupt pod.
Clearly, Portelli has run out of space to tinker with in Malta- Kristina Chetcuti
At the price tag of €100 million, Portelli could be eyeing an original Van Gogh painting such as the Portrait of the Artist without Beard (€98m), or he could be mulling an Airbus plane (€96m) or, say, his very own high-tech, queue-free, roller coaster (€105). Instead, he wants his own replica of Kemunett. Why? You can be certain that it’s not because he’s hankering for some peace and quiet.
You just hear his raspy voice: “Xiex? 70 villas? As if! I’ll build 250 apartments like I’m doing on the cliffs of Sannat. Boutiques? I’ll build a shopping mall the size of Mercury Towers in Paceville! Olive trees? In that case I’ll uproot those to make space for a football ground where I’ll be president and star player. And don’t worry, there’ll be enough space so that every inch of the coastline will be carpeted with deckchairs, like Blue Lagoon!”
Clearly, he’s run out of space to tinker with over here and he’s run out of people to help him so they lift him on their shoulders in adulation. Could it be that he also needs a ‘divine’ place where to put the ‘gift from the Gods’ money?
Victoria’s Secret
The position of Attorney General is a constitutional role, paid for from our taxes. The specific role of the AG is to prosecute criminals and thereby ensure that the public interest is safeguarded. It is why the AG leads the court prosecution proceedings in very serious criminal cases such as, for example, money laundering or a journalist’s assassination.
It seems to me that over the last decade, the official brief of the AG’s job has been misplaced and has changed to: “The AG must represent and side with criminals”.
The previous AG, Peter Grech, was odiously treacherous and cowardly.
He pretended to be a weakling, when in truth he was and still pathetically is, unscrupulous in his greed and in plotting his own survival.
The current AG, Victoria Buttigieg, is a carbon copy protégé.
If Grech threw away the last semblance of justice to the bins, Buttigieg is setting fire to those bins. She has shown us that she is equally unprincipled and it does not matter one iota to her she is betraying police or journalists risking their lives.
Let us not for a minute entertain the idea that she is careless or spineless – she is neither. She simply she has no integrity. And our country’s rule of law is the worse off for it.