Michael Zammit Tabona, anti-communist – Ranier Fsadni

We should all thank God that this country has avoided communism. But if we’ve avoided falling into the clutches of semi-communism, it’s freedom fighters like Michael Zammit Tabona that we should thank.

Zammit Tabona’s anti-totalitarian credentials are impeccable. Only two years ago, his Facebook page warned Europe that the then Chancellor of Germany, Angela Merkel, needed to be stopped, as she was like Adolf Hitler.

The usual “idiots” insisted Zammit Tabona, Malta’s non-resident ambassador to Finland for the previous six years, had to be sacked. But if he hadn’t been an ambassador, how else would his analysis have made the BBC news? He drew a line in the sand for Malta’s best-in-Europe status.

Now, the idiots are at it again. They’re suggesting a cap on visitors to Comino to conserve its natural environment. Zammit Tabona, a major operator ferrying tourists to Comino, has pointed out that this is tantamount to semi-communism.

The communists have already destroyed his beautiful 2020 plan to build a pontoon of 130 square metres off Balluta Bay. It would have enabled a 33-metre hop-on hop-off catamaran to stop there 22 times daily, greatly adding to the appreciation of the bay’s charm.

A fellow traveller in the Planning Authority recommended the project for refusal, since it breached several communist planning policies. The Authority was perspicacious enough to approve it anyway. The clamour of the usual mob, however, ultimately led to the withdrawal of the application.

Zammit Tabona isn’t dogmatic. His take on capping visitors is nuanced. During the pandemic, when the government was preventing migrants from Libya from entering Malta, Zammit Tabona generously allowed the Captain Morgan pleasure boats to be used to imprison men, women and children at sea.

If the family business was paid €3,000 a day per boat, it goes to show how hospitality and profit can go together.

How is anti-communism to be practised with vigilance? Simple. The guiding principle of communism is, famously, from each according to his ability to each according to his needs. Zammit Tabona demonstrates how anti-communism should practise the reverse: from each who is needy to each who is able.

The human resources company, Ozo Systems, in which the Zammit Tabona family is the major shareholder, has benefited from a €10 million direct order by WastServ to supply 700 low-paid personnel. Ozo earns a commission on each worker to the tune of over €1 million a year.

Real ability should be recognised and rewarded. Between 2016-18, James Piscopo, the former CEO of the Labour Party, was in business — two separate companies — with the Zammit Tabonas. This was while Piscopo headed first the Transport, then the Lands, Authorities.

It’s entirely a coincidence that, during Piscopo’s tenure, the Fortina Group signed a deal for €8.1 million to buy a parcel of public land on the Tigne seafront and change its use to enable the building of an office block, shopping facilities and residences.

The communists denounced the deal, which stipulated that only €1 million would be paid immediately and the rest over the next ten years. Idiots don’t know how wealth creation works.

The office building was sold to a betting company for €60 million and Josette Schembri Vella (Keith Schembri’s wife) got a lucrative contract for the interior design. Some allege that all this happened before the Lands Authority had acceded to the change of land use, but since when is it a crime to be ahead of the times?

As for Piscopo, he’s now gone from Lands, but his ability to service needs is still appreciated. The Fortina Group engages his advisory services.

We could go on but space precludes us from discussing how the former Mtarfa Hospital will now become an international school with the Fortina Group as the project manager. The point is that Zammit Tabona has the credentials to preach the virtues of anti-communism.

He is the first to recognise that he owes a lot to Joseph Muscat’s way of running the economy. The US government and the European Parliament might declare that serious corruption took place on Muscat’s watch. But Zammit Tabona dismisses most allegations as inventions.

The world might say that the former prime minister is disgraced; Zammit Tabona declares he’s the best prime minister ever. It may be why Zammit Tabona’s close business associate, Sharlon Pace, is backing Muscat’s comeback through football.

Zammit Tabona knows a thing or two about unfair allegations. His critics like to say that he’s a Labour Party donor (to the tune, according to one claim, of a minimum €100,000 a year). Then they say his family exercises undue influence over government decisions.

He strongly rejects such allegations. Lies, all lies and misinformation. Undue influence? Nonsense. Any influence he exercises is his due.

A grateful nation would recognise Zammit Tabona’s social beneficence and acuity of mind. It would accept his pontoons and dismiss his critics as buffoons. In a world free from idiots, he would be known simply by his initials, MZT.

Unfortunately, MZT has already been taken over by China’s Communist Party, as shorthand for “Mao Zedong Thought”.

Communists! Their filthy hands use the power of the Party to grab everything.