Setting the record straight

I am writing to request you to publish this letter as my right of reply to an article penned by Claudette Buttigieg MP on 13 November, 2015 in your paper. Regrettably and shamefully, Mrs Buttigieg completely ignored two emails which I sent to her on the 18 November and the 8 December, requesting her to retract false and libellous statements made in her article. This is the reason why I now write to you.

In her article Mrs Buttigieg claims that I am in some way connected with a Alan Comerford, apparently an advisor to Minister Konrad Mizzi, and I believe, that possibly being the only “Indian” businessman she knows, I must be connected with Ram Tumuluri, (apparently another Indian) whose company was awarded the hospitals privatization contract. How she arrived at this conclusion is perhaps best left to her convoluted thinking but in her rush to throw mud in the hope that some will stick, she tripped up on some fundamentals. Why let facts get in the way of a good story?

To set the record straight, I have never met or had any business dealings with either Alan Comerford or Ram Tumuluri. I do not know either of them.

To add insult to injury and perhaps momentarily forgetting that she is writing a current affairs opinion in a respectable broadsheet, Mrs Buttigieg goes on to make another irresponsibly false claim in my regard – that I may have been involved in the sale of a share in Enemalta to the Chinese.

I categorically refute this allegation and declare that I was not involved in any way, shape or form in this transaction or in any negotiations leading to it.

I would have thought that a Member of Parliament would at least bother checking her facts before putting pen to paper, and more importantly, having been informed that she had got her facts wrong, would have had the decency to retract her false statements immediately.

The political party Mrs Buttigieg belongs to and represents, laudably trumpets the need for high standards of ethics and good governance in the running of the country. Respect for the truth and for every person’s right not to be unfairly tarnished in public are surely both values by which proper ethical behaviour from Malta’s political class can be measured. Through her libellous claims in my regard and her failure to retract them when requested, Mrs Buttigieg has unfortunately shown that she only pays lip service to the high political standards demanded by her own party and her leader.