Saviour Balzan has to go

Waking up this morning to the prospect of a further five years of a PL government, elected in a resounding victory for the third consecutive time, was strangely eerie. There was no doubt it would happen – the Maltese electorate has made clear over the past few years where its preference lay. But the sense of rushing headlong towards catastrophe has intensified, despite the ominous calm.

Whether the electorate’s choice indicates a population that actively wants a corrupt administration or whether it was because the opposition was so weak will be debated in detail in the coming weeks. However, in the meantime, The Shift will continue its task of holding the government to account and demanding justice for assassinated journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia.

As the only truly independent newsroom on the island, the only one that did not make money out of this election by rejecting political adverts and paid content as thinly-veiled propaganda, The Shift has spent the past four years exposing and documenting the rampant, unrestrained corruption of the PL government ministers, parliamentary secretaries and officials, as well as highlighting wrongdoing in politicians from all sides. The attempts to stymie and hinder us from doing our jobs have been legion.

Lies, smear campaigns, attacks – from all sides – have become par for the course. We put our heads down and get on with our sole purpose, to uncover and deliver the truth to our readers. That won’t change. And it includes exposing government agents masquerading as ‘independent journalists’.

Saviour Balzan’s blog today is reminiscent of the follow-up to the 2017 general elections when, the morning after the swearing-in of the prime minister, the editorial in L-Orizzont named specific journalists “traitors”, “spineless agents of the opposition” who are “full of hate”, who must “bow their heads to the people’s choice” and “disappear”.

Daphne Caruana Galizia, one of the journalists named, was then brutally assassinated. Saviour Balzan was at the forefront of attacks against her.

This morning, Saviour Balzan, Malta’s opportunist par excellence who’s supposed to have resigned – twice – saw fit to throw a jab in our direction, by attempting to associate The Shift with activist group Repubblika and blogger Manuel Delia, lumping us together and accusing us of ‘prejudice’ and acting as a reference point for the PN’s policies.

We’ve made it clear over the years that we are not in any way affiliated with the PN, Repubblika or Manuel Delia, and indeed, have been the targets of hate speech and vicious smear campaigns from their own supporters, when we criticised or questioned individuals associated with those groups.

So Balzan’s throwaway line, a cheap and transparent attempt to undermine the very foundations of our work, is not only completely incorrect but deliberately misleading.

Balzan has his own reasons for attempting to undermine us by associating us with PN policies and what he calls “prejudice”.

The Shift is the only publication in Malta to expose Balzan as the fraud he is. One of Daphne Caruana Galizia’s most vicious attackers during her lifetime, Balzan sold his soul to disgraced former prime minister Joseph Muscat and his motley crew of crooks for more than a million euros.

Just how much more than a million euros, we’re trying very hard to find out. Balzan, and his chums within the PL government – the ministers who employ him as a “consultant,” the government departments who use him for “PR,” the officials who pay him out of taxpayer funds to advise them on media issues – are doing their best to prevent us from uncovering the true extent of Balzan’s bounty.

In October last year, we revealed that Saviour Balzan had received more than a million euros in government contracts under the PL government. However, we were unable to determine the full amount he’d hoovered up, as several government ministries and agencies refused to pass on the information we requested.

This meant we were forced to file Freedom of Information requests, appealing to the Data Protection Commissioner to try to get the missing details in order to be able to report the full extent of his involvement with the PL government.

Our FOI requests were successful and the Data Protection Commissioner ordered the information to be made available to us.

Instead of complying, though, these ministers and departments, 30 of them, one by one, filed identical appeals against the order, making it clear that this was a concerted effort to block The Shift’s efforts to uncover the truth.

Thirty appeals, all of which have to be battled in court, tying up our time and our resources – and all part of a deliberate, cynical attempt to hide the truth and block the independent media from its rightful access to information. All, to protect Saviour Balzan’s commercial interests and his servility to the government.

And who’s at the centre of this attempt to withhold crucial information from the media? None other than the beneficiary of all those taxpayer euros: Saviour Balzan, himself – with the clear coordination of the Labour machine.

Business 2 Business Ltd, a company solely owned by Media Today’s Saviour Balzan, was also handed a 15-year lease for premises within the government-owned industrial estate in the Mosta Technopark. His lease was also accompanied by a side letter from former Malta Industrial Parks CEO Karl Azzopardi, which provided Balzan with a 10-month window from January to October 2020 in which he paid just €1 per month.

The self-serving, flip-flopping, supposed ‘journalist’ attempting to deceive the populace into believing he founded an “independent newsroom” is simultaneously seeking to prevent the truly independent media from accessing the information it has the right to see and publish, in the public interest.

The implications of this third PL victory for the Maltese media are dire. And Saviour Balzan, incredibly, a government-picked representative on the “media experts committee” set up to implement the media reform required by the recommendations of the public inquiry into the assassination of Daphne Caruana Galizia, made sure this morning that everyone knows it.

No, Saviour Balzan, calling out hypocrisy, dishonesty, corruption and thievery is not “prejudice”. It’s our job, our duty to the nation and to the people to whom we pledged to bring the truth. We will continue to do it. We will discover how much of the taxpayer’s hard-earned money you’ve grabbed, and we will expose your duplicity and deceit in doing it.

The election’s over, and we’re getting back to business, even more determined than ever.

                           

Sign up to our newsletter

Stay in the know

Get special updates directly in your inbox
Don't worry we do not spam
                           
                               
Subscribe
Notify of
guest

10 Comments
Oldest
Newest Most Voted
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments
M.Galea
M.Galea
2 years ago

L poplu thalla liberu ifotti min dal gvern u jimpurtah biss mic-cejca. L affarijiet li jdejquh dawwarhom ghal vantagg tieghu. L. Kostruzzjoni dejqet lil kullhadd imma accetawha ghax qed jiddejnu biex jinvestu, u ghal ekonomija b sahhitha ghax hekk bellawielhom, li kisru ambjent iddejjaqhom imma ghalqu ghajn ghax weghduhom spazji miftuha, li qacctu s sigra ddejjaqhom imma l aqwa li Ian qed iwessa t toroq etc etc…dak hu l poplu Malti. Fejn jidhol l PN rubbish ohra. Min ried s sewwa ma hax dak li ried min Bernard. Bernard minflok qalilna li l kacca tibqa imma iridu jobdu r regolamenti qal l kaccatur habib tan natura w li l kaccatur jistmah izjed mil l ghasfur. X ragunar ehh!! Dan avukat wara kollox? Bhal kostruzzjoni. Jaf kemm hawn imdejqin u qalilna l kostruzzjoni tkompli, l barranin ghandna bzonnhom, etc etc…

Malcolm
Malcolm
2 years ago
Reply to  M.Galea

Sew qed tghid. il-PN prova jwieghed (izejnu ftit biex isodd lil kulhadd) dak li il-gvern diga qed jaghti minflok ha pozizzjonijiet sodi u riskjuzi. Il-kacca wahda minnhom (kif tista tirbah il-vot tal-kaccaturi meta l-gvern fethilhom l-istagun tar-rebbiegha fuq il-gamiema?). It-tqassim ta’ flus bla razan, meta l-finanzi tal-pajjiz spiccuti, ohra.

Joseph
Joseph
2 years ago
Reply to  M.Galea

Kemm fuq il-kostruzzjoni u kemm fuq il-kacca Bernard ma qalx kif qed tikkwota int. Bernard Grech m’ghandux tort ghat-telfa tal-PN. It-tort huwa tal maggoranza tal-elettorat Malti, li vvutat biex Robert ikompli fejn halla Muscat u hu stess fil-korruzzjoni,fil-qirda ta’l-ambjent,fis-salarji esagerati ghall-hbieb tal-hbieb,ghall-ingustizzji etc.Il-qtil ta’ Daphne intesa’, qisu ma miet hadd! X’misthija! Din turi li dawn in-nies akkost ta’kollox lesti jivvutaw lil lejber basta jinqdew b’xi pjacir,job,jew xi cheque qabel l-elezzjoni! U sfortunatament qed jizdiedu dawn it-tip ta’nies.Ma jridux politika ta’ rettezza u ta’ onesta’. U ohra, lanqas jekk il-PN ikollhom l-aqwa politikant li hawn fid-dinja, mhux se jbiddilhom zgur!

Last edited 2 years ago by Joseph
M.Galea
M.Galea
2 years ago
Reply to  Joseph

Xi hadd staqsieni, xi trid taghmel l oposizzjoni biex tkun fil gvern u r risposta tieghi kienet, xejn! L poplu sar jara biss dik l laghqa, xi job ma jaghmel xejn kif ghedt inti, sar rghib, ifotti, egoist, allura gvern l istess irid mas saqajn u dan l karattru ta dal poplu sawwarulu dal gvern.

Anthony T Mamo
Anthony T Mamo
2 years ago
Reply to  M.Galea

M’intix tghid il-verita dwar il-kacca ghax dr Grech ghamilha cara li l-ligijiet iridu jigu obbduti.

viv
viv
2 years ago

When out of misery steps courage is rare, and inspiring.
More health and power to Caroline and all in The Shift team.

JOHN CASSAR
2 years ago

How right you are The Shifts News. Saviour Balzon is a hypocrite. He has been acting as an underground journalist for the PL for quite some time. From their end the PL Government has remunerated him with fat contracts
e

Jason
Jason
2 years ago

Is this guy not the same guy that in 2013 and 2017 blamed Daphne Caruana Galizia for PN losses? So now what? He should be ashamed of his failed judgements if not devious

carlos
carlos
2 years ago

so KORROT IEHOR, U MIXTRI MINN KORROTTI BHALU

carlos imhasss
2 years ago

60000 elf vot li ma ngabrux jew imhassra. Il-muvument korrott m ghandux il- maggoranza tal-poplu Malti, pero xorta jibqa ghaddej bil- korruzjoni ghaliex din qieghda fid-dna tieghu.

Related Stories

Opinion: Apology, no apology
It must have been during those philosophy or English
Opinion: Labour’s escape route for criminals
Just before Christmas, the government rushed through parliament a

Our Awards and Media Partners

Award logo Award logo Award logo