Oliver on the lighter side
Whenever Oliver Friggieri and I met we laughed a lot! And he used to tell me: “Do you know when it was that I laughed so much?” I always replied “no”, and he would say: “It was the last time we met!”
Having said that, I was always impressed that whenever you met Oliver, of necessity, you felt the need to revise your basic beliefs and conceptions. Meeting him made you become a different person.
Way back, literally on the eve of leaving Malta to serve the Church in Brazil, he told me that he and the musician and composer Charles Camilleri had written an oratorio entitled Pawlu ta’ Malta and they needed a thousand Malta pounds to have it held at St John’s. I was then president of the Christus Rex Society and I accepted the challenge. I went around and succeeded in giving him the cheque before leaving the island.
Let’s hope that this coming February the media will give importance to this oratorio in honour of St Paul firstly, and secondly Oliver Friggieri and Charles Camilleri.
I followed Oliver’s funeral service at St John’s from afar. The Archbishop’s homily as well as the script and poetry reading and recitation made one feel deeply impressed with the greatness of little Malta, to which Oliver dedicated his life.
I hope that the whole ritual will soon be available on a CD.
Fr John Caruana – Sarandi, Paraná, Brazil
Look before you leap
Our prime minister said that he has set next May as the target for the country to return to “business as usual” where COVID-19 will be spoken about “as a thing of the past”.
Although I very much wish for his target to be reached, I feel he is counting his chickens before they are hatched.
I feel somewhat uncomfortable about Robert Abela’s optimism as he has already proved to be wrong in the past when expressing similar sentiments about defeating COVID-19.
Karl Flores – San Ġwann
Commemorating Beethoven’s birth
Kudos to the Central Bank of Malta for issuing on the 250th anniversary of Beethoven’s birth, a commemorative coin that is artistically worthy of honouring this greatest composer of all ages, and whose impact transcends the purely musical.
Artist Noel Galea Bason has superbly distilled the subject to his essence, rendering that magnificent leonine hair covering the ears that had tragically failed him, his steely scowl and deep set eyes beneath the noble brow, wellspring of extraordinary genius, imagination and invention, teeming with motifs which he painstakingly chiseled into staggeringly mighty music of unsurpassed beauty and profundity.
A coin bearing the initials ‘NGB’ is never just a coin but is a miniature sculpture in its own right.
His Beethoven coin is testimony of a determined perfectionist with unique skills and total command of the numismatic medium. As expected, Beethoven has been featured in many coins this year worldwide. Galea Bason’s tour de force holds its own with the finest.
Alfred Fabri – Attard
Regulating real estate agents
The responsibilities of real estate agents are regulated by Act XXXII of 2020. This Act followed the White Paper that set out Malta’s property code and regulations for the industry. The White Paper was well written, providing most of the tenets required to assist property agents set up an effective quality management system as is their responsibility to their clients.
While the Act includes ethics through article 14(1), it fails to address ethics comprehensively and effectively through clear requirements as stated in the White Paper. So the Act grossly falls short of enabling estate agents to achieve transparency, accountability, duty of care, and a fair playing ground, thus failing to effectively protect clients.
The Act rightly provides for an intermediary through article 14 (2) but fails to state that the intermediary does not have the right to usurp the right of sellers to information from the agent.
The Act’s shortcomings can be addressed by the Licensing Board. For effective and fair dealing between the agent, buyer and seller, there is a need for: (1) The comprehensive ethics section in the White Paper to be included in the board’s regulations for the guidance of agent and intermediary, taking the opportunity to state that sellers and buyers have a right to ask questions to the agent, regardless of there being an intermediary, and be provided with answers by the agent; (2) A conflict of interest of an agent towards a seller should be identified as a breach of ethics; (3) The promise of sale should include the full identity (name, surname, ID, address) of the buyers and sellers in order to proceed, details of the financials (selling price, agency fee, VAT), and any planned assignment of rights. Also, the promise of sale should be open to questions by sellers rather than a ‘fait accompli’.
In case the agent is not forthcoming with requests for information by the seller regarding the sale, and in particular the information that the ethics section makes available to the seller, then the seller has a right not to sign the promise of sale.
To date, the lack of clarity in the legislation regarding the responsibilities of estate agents towards sellers grossly undercuts the rights of sellers at law.
In this day and age, transparency and accountability are required at law, should prevail in practice, and not be thinly addressed in the legal paperwork.
The quality of legislation is a responsibility of the government in promoting the rule of law as is required in a democracy. If the legislation does not adequately protect the seller’s rights, the government will be liable for damages arising from ineffective legislation. Citizens deserve to have their rights made explicit if the Act is to function as a credible legislation.
Joan Ribi – Valletta
Thank you from Catania
I would like to extend my heartfelt thanks to all the members of the Mission Fund, Mosta, for their generous donation of €2,000.
The money covers some of the costs of our projects at our hostel for female students who are studying here in Catania.
I have been the local superior in the community of Catania, Sicily, for the past year.
There are two other sisters with me, one Sicilian and one Kenyan.
Our students come from all over Sicily and Italy, and at the moment there are 10 of them. We take care of them, cook for them, clean their rooms, and above all, keep a close relationship with them and see that they are happy with us.
In Catania I also meet some poor people on the street, especially refugees, who beg for a living, and ask for help. There are also some who sleep on the streets and some come to our gate begging for food.
Kindly say a prayer for me as I assure you all of my prayers, so that the good Lord will shower His abundant blessings on all of you and on your dear ones. May God bless you all.
I would like to take this opportunity to appeal to the public to help the Mission Fund, ‘Eureka Court’, Block A. Flat 6 [Ground Floor], Main Street, Mosta. MST 1018. Please send them used stamps, telecards and donations.
I am sure that the newborn Child at Christmas will bless you abundantly for all that you are doing for the missions. May He continue to shower on you all His choicest blessings. I assure you of my daily prayers. We will also remember in our prayers our deceased benefactors.
Heartfelt thanks to all.
Donations may be made online or by direct bank transfer to one of the following Accounts: BOV: IBAN No: MT70VALL220130000000 16300798022; APS: IBAN No: MT67APSB77079005231820000 820762; BNF: IBAN No: MT94BNIF1450200000000087963101; Lombard: IBAN NO: MT65LBMA05000000000001440822115.
Sr. Josepha Gauci – Franciscan Sisters of the Heart of Jesus, Catania, Sicily
On being ‘late’ in history
There is a popular dictum among Italian economic historians which often makes reference to the “benefici della dilatazione storica”.
These would be the benefits to an economy of being late, domestically adopting, with a time lag, certain measures which would have been done, tried and dusted, in a previous period in another economy, and then thus ensuring that the mistakes committed, or negative effects which would have resulted there, not being repeated on home soil.
Is this a thought that should be embraced or considered during the current elating and euphoria about the final and longed-for arrival – and immediate use everywhere – of the new COVID-19 vaccines?
Yes, some may rightly say that economic and medical experiences do not move in similar pathways. I know that the rigid examination and testing protocols adopted elsewhere should not in any way push us towards pessimism, or indeed knee-jerk reacting.
But caution has always been a virtue. Should we let others try out these long-waited-for treatments for some time themselves, and then only adopt collectively afterwards?
John Consiglio – Birkirkara
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