Saviour Balzan’s transparency

“I have no problem being transparent,” Saviour Balzan declared after the courts shot down two government entities’ pathetic attempts to conceal the money they had given him.

The Malta Film Commission and Circular Economy Malta had just lost their freedom of information cases against Caroline Muscat.

They were just two of the 18 cases government ministries and other state entities are pursuing to prevent us from finding out how much Saviour Balzan has been given from the public coffers. The Shift won another eight of those cases last week.

Those entities are squandering thousands of euro of taxpayer funds in a vindictive attempt to cripple The Shift financially.  With their latest defeat in court, the 10  have burdened taxpayers with all the court expenses related to those frivolous and vexatious lawsuits.

Saviour Balzan was incensed that his secret deals were being exposed. In a rambling article in one of his newspapers, Balzan said: “The point here is not about access to information but rather the selective nature in asking for FOI requests (sic)”.

That was swiftly followed by empty threats:  “In this scenario, I am left with no choice other than to request information on all government contributions to all the other media houses in the last 20 years.”

Shock, horror. Balzan will ask the government to make all its contributions to media houses public.  In a proper democracy, that information should have long been in the public domain.

What’s scary is not Balzan’s threat to request the publication of that information but the fact that it’s been kept secret for so long.

Balzan exposes himself for the infantile sulker he is.  If they want to know how much money Labour gave me, I want to know what a Nationalist administration gave them in 2003, Balzan insists.

“I say 20 years because Caroline Muscat, a PN apologist, wishes to give the impression that before a certain date, media apartheid did not exist,” Balzan wrote. There’s a lot to chew on there.

Balzan is admitting there is “media apartheid”, as he clumsily calls it.  What he really means is that it’s true that government selectively funds his government-friendly media house. And that it’s absolutely fine that Labour is keeping him afloat with the untold amount of funds it secretly hands him because, according to him, that’s what’s always happened.

Balzan let the cat out of the bag: “I believe that without state intervention, media houses will cease to exist.”

He’s publicly admitting that the only reason his MediaToday business is still around is that Labour funds it with taxpayer money. He knows that without Labour’s “intervention”, his media house would have folded.

The man who brags that he has “no problem with transparency” hid the fact that while he accepted a seat on the supposedly independent media experts committee, he was also being paid by the Justice Ministry.

That ministry was tasked with drawing up legislation based on that committee’s recommendations.  So while the Justice Minister was paying Balzan thousands of euro in consultancy fees, Balzan also sat on the committee making recommendations to the justice minister.

When the prime minister appointed Balzan to that committee, he was described as a “veteran journalist”. No reference was made to the hundreds of thousands of euros Labour paid him through multiple contracts.

But there was far worse in Balzan’s history that Abela kept secret from international media.

He didn’t tell those organisations that Saviour Balzan is a self-declared liar. He didn’t tell them that Balzan called Daphne Caruana Galizia a liar and threatened her with legal action when she revealed that Keith Schembri called him at 1am the morning after she alleged Egrant belonged to Michelle Muscat.

“I will be taking immediate legal action today against Daphne Caruana Galizia for this morning’s blog regarding phone calls she claims were made to me last week by Keith Schembri. The last time I did take legal action, she had to apologise for inventing a lie,” Balzan said on social media.

Balzan knew that the courts could order telephone companies to provide call logs as court evidence.  He knew that what Caruana Galizia reported was the truth.  Yet he threatened her with legal action and used the power of his media organisation to intimidate her.

Caruana Galizia exposed his lie by publishing the call logs, not only of that 1am phone call on 20 April 2017 but also two subsequent calls Balzan made to Schembri two days later – one of which lasted 20 minutes.

Instead of backing down, apologising and resigning from his media roles, Balzan used his newspaper to attack Caruana Galizia. He announced that he would file an information and data protection complaint and incited political parties and the Institute of Maltese Journalists (IĠM) to condemn Caruana Galizia.

“Waiting for condemnation from political parties and IĠM regarding the release of my private data and logs from the service providers,” he wrote. The man who has no problems with transparency desperately tried to create a storm when his lies were exposed.

Balzan finally admitted that “it was a mistake to deny it”.  That was no mistake.  It was a devious and despicable attempt to destroy the woman who exposed him.  He only admitted his lie because he had no other choice.

Instead of retiring into oblivion in disgrace, Labour scooped him up.  They gave him one contract after another, amounting to over one million euros, and that’s the tip of the iceberg. He’s been rewarded with prime-time slots on the national broadcaster to host discussion programmes.

Then the man who lied about, harassed and threatened Caruana Galizia with legal action was put on the committee recommending measures to protect journalists.

“I have no problem being shown for what I am – a maverick, ambitious, hard-working and abrasive media owner,” Balzan wrote.

The truth is that he’s nothing but a duplicitous, nasty liar who cannot be trusted as far as he can be thrown.