Labour’s dirty tricks cupboard: IVF
Another day, yet another lie in Joseph Muscat’s negative campaign.
Claudette Buttigieg is a PN candidate on the 8th and 12th districts.– cbuttigieg08@gmail.com, twitter: @ButClaudette
This time they are spreading the word that a government led by Simon Busuttil would stop the IVF service offered at Mater Dei. Some posts on Facebook are even saying that I am personally against IVF. What nonsense!
This is yet another desperate attempt to hang on to power at all costs. Let’s get the facts straight.
The Embryo Protection Act was introduced by the last Nationalist government in 2012. A government led by Simon Busuttil will not only maintain the service, it will invest in and improve the service offered by the IVF department. Muscat should stop using sensitive issues such as IVF as a political tool.
Pass the salt
We all know that anything Muscat says needs to be taken with a huge pinch of salt. Yesterday, he declared that he always defends the national interest. Someone, please pass the salt.
Muscat was replying to a question about a German regional minister who has just accused Malta of being the “Panama of Europe.”
The German minister got many things factually wrong. We are definitely not the Panama of Europe. However, the very accusation can be damaging to the financial services of Malta, and the thousands of people employed in the sector.
Simon Busuttil’s reaction to the news was swift and strong. We are not the Panama of Europe, he declared, nor do we want to be. A government led by Busuttil would immediately set out to clean up Malta’s name and reputation. He began to fight for Malta’s interest the moment the news came out.
However, our ability to fight for our side has been greatly undermined and weakened by Muscat himself. Why do you think the German minister chose to label us ‘the Panama of Europe’?
Do you think it would have been conceivable before the Panama Papers were exposed? Before Malta was shown to have an incumbent cabinet minister with a secret company there? Plus a secret company belonging to the Prime Minister’s own right-hand man, his chief of staff, Keith Schembri?
Muscat has refused to take action against Konrad Mizzi and Keith Schembri. With his lack of action, Muscat has given this German minister his killer insult, ‘Panama of Europe’.
In fact, our financial services have nothing to do with Panama. Mizzi and Schembri had to go all the way to Panama to keep their secret dealings hidden. Our own financial structures are strict enough to have caught them out.
But Muscat’s inaction give credibility to the accusation that Malta sees nothing wrong with behaviour that seems like a textbook case of money laundering.
Muscat is the source of the problem. He can talk about defending the national interest till he is blue in the face. The fact is, however, that he is not doing the one thing he could do to begin addressing the issue – sacking Mizzi and Schembri.
Instead, he refuses to say whether Schembri will be his chief of staff again, should Labour win the election.
There is only one possible interpretation of that. Muscat intends to keep Schembri. He is not prepared to address the problem, in spite of everything. He is prepared to gamble thousands of Maltese jobs to save the skin of his friends.
Meanwhile, he is trying to insinuate that the problem is caused by others. As if anyone in Malta could dictate to the mainstream European press what line it should take.
As for the German minister, he is a socialist – a member of the same European political grouping to which the Labour Party belongs.
Muscat should choose to put Malta’s interests before his own. If he does not, there is only one alternative. The rest of us should choose Malta on 3 June.