Labour’s struggles: It’s one minister against another, Adrian Delia says

Leader of the Opposition Adrian Delia yesterday said that that the problem of finding people to serve as acting chairs of the Malta Gaming Authority and Malta Communications Authority were down to internal battles between ministers who want to place “their” people in top positions.

Speaking on the Nationalist Party’s radio station, Delia said that the government this week was constrained to appoint these authorities’ CEOs as acting chairs after the term of the previous incumbents expired.

Apart from having to deal with ministers fighting among themselves to place people close to them in positions of power, the government is now also realising that fewer people want to take up tasks where they are expected to rubber stamp decisions taken elsewhere.

He referred to the resignation of two PN MPs from the Planning Authority and Lands

Authority earlier this week. Marthese Portelli and Ryan Callus resigned because the PN does not want to act as an accomplice in decisions that are not taken by the respective entities.

“The government has hijacked the country’s institutions to serve the few,” Delia insisted, mentioning in particular the Lands Authority. “Institutions were there to supposedly serve the whole country and its people, but under the Labour government they were being used to serve the few and make them rich.”

Delia said that both Prime Minister Joseph Muscat and Minister Ian Borg were wrong to say that the PA’s decision to grant a permit for a neglected room on a farm to be converted into a villa in Qala was taken according to established policies. “This is not so,” Delia said. “The PN was not afraid to take responsibility of decisions but it cannot serve as a seal to what others decide elsewhere.”