Former Minister and veteran Labour Party MP Leo Brincat has been appointed by the government as the new chairman of the Malta Development Bank (MDB).
Brincat, who will be 75 next year, will be replacing former Nationalist Party minister Josef Bonnici, who was at the helm of the bank since its inception in 2017.
The bank, wholly owned by the government, has an equity of some €80 million and serves as a facilitator to finance start-ups, SMEs and social projects which do not necessarily qualify for financing under normal commercial banking terms.
Brincat, who has spent decades in parliament, served as finance minister during the turbulent Alfred Sant administration (1996-1998), where he was responsible for a new unsuccessful tax system, replacing VAT. His project was soon scrapped.
In 2013, when Labour was returned to power, Brincat served as environment minister until 2016, when he was nominated to become Malta’s member on the EU’s Court of Auditors after the European Parliament blocked the nomination of Labour’s Deputy Leader (now Judge) Toni Abela.
Brincat, a moderate, has significant experience in the banking sector, as he used to work at HSBC.
GWU President Victor Carachi
At the same time, Finance Minister Clyde Caruana also nominated Victor Carachi, the president of the GWU, for the bank’s board.
Despite his sensitive position as the president of the island’s largest union, supposedly defending the workers’ interest, Carachi has held several government-appointed positions and consultancies.
His union, which has remained mostly quiet on exploiting workers, has various business agreements with the government, including renting buildings to them and administrating an unemployment scheme.
Brincat and Carachi join Anthony Valvo – former agent of disgraced ex-prime minister Joseph Muscat, Labour MEP candidate Steve Ellul and Air Malta Chairman Philip von Brockdorff, among others, on the MDB’s board.
Please stop equating a low level job in a bank with ‘significant banking experience in the banking sector’. Try scratching below the surface of personal CVs. The same applies to most government ministers, like, for example, Aaron Farrugia. Being the Chairman of a holding company with virtually no employees does not equate to extensive chairmanship experience in the corporate world.
When will these pigs be judged as having been fattened enough?
Mind you, a couple of them will require quite a lot of chewing after their slaughter, so a dentist appointment beforehand may be a good idea.
Another pension chaser appointed to the trough for services provided, Gahans rule into oblivion!
Instead of giving something back to the country, some people want even more at the end of their life. Sometimes I think they want to be buried at the expense of the taxpayers.
Don’t give the pigs any ideas ….
Qabda mejtin bil-ġuħ.
Geriatric Generation. One was a common bank clerk, the other a union leader and the last a failed accountant.
Speaking of accountants, whatever happened to Joe Sammut, former Labour party treasurer before becoming accountant to Muatassim Gaddafi?
The more the merrier.
U goalies le, Forsi m’ghandux jithazer hu wkoll; wara kollox hu mill-familja tal-muvument korrot ukoll.