Opinion: Abela’s panic

When is “one property touching the other” just one property? When are two properties bought through different contracts many years apart, just one property? When Robert Abela says so.

You know Robert Abela’s been caught cheating by the aggression and hostility of his attacks. These days, he’s habitually launching vitriolic assaults on those exposing his dodgy deals, further demeaning his office with more embarrassing belligerence.

In the latest episode of Robert’s rants, he raged about Arnold Cassola’s complaint to the Standards Commissioner. In 2022, Abela and his wife Lydia bought 500 square metres of land in Xewkija for €180,000. Nothing wrong with that, but the problem is that despite earning only €65,000 and spending €180,000, Abela’s savings increased by €12,000, and he acquired a further €20,000 in government stocks that year. At least, that’s what Abela’s declaration of assets states.

The numbers just don’t add up because Abela didn’t sell any property or win the lottery, so how on earth could he spend €180,000 with a €65,000 annual income and still be €32,000 richer? 

Of course, Abela might have a very legitimate reason for his inconsistent declaration of assets, but judging by his furious reaction to the simple question, “Why didn’t you declare that property in Xewkija worth €180,000?” it’s unlikely Abela has one. 

In what must be one of Abela’s most contradictory answers, he claimed that he had declared his new property. 

Abela’s declaration covering 2021 listed a property in Xewkija’.  His declaration covering 2022, when he acquired his second Xewkija property, also listed as “a property in Xewkija”.  Abela is trying to fool the nation by pretending that the new land he acquired in 2022 is the same property he declared previously. 

That original property was a farmhouse in Xewkija Abela bought in 2010 for €268,000 from a German couple.  Now, he’s bought land adjacent to that property.

Even the Times’ Mark Laurence Zammit protested: “That was another property”. Abela rudely interrupted, “No, no, no, that’s the same property”, but then swiftly proceeded to demolish his own argument: “A property that was bought through several contracts (diversi kuntratti), it is one property, one touching the other”.

Abela thinks we are stupid and that he can convince us that two properties next to each other are the same as one property. He’s trying to make us swallow the nonsense that he acquired “one” property through two separate contracts, one signed in 2010 and another signed twelve years later.

Then, in a bid to divert attention from his gaslighting and flimsy excuses, he attacked his current preferred target, Professor Arnold Cassola.

In a frenzied attack, he sought to humiliate Cassola, accusing him of “devaluing the seriousness of the office of the Standards Commissioner”. He called Cassola’s report “baseless and unfounded” despite the report’s hard facts and figures. He resorted to mocking Cassola: “The irony is that Professor Cassola every week dreams up a report about me and my friends, multiple reports, the vast majority without any basis. And then because the Standards Commissioner decides as he should, he (Cassola) says that the Commissioner is controlled by me”.

‘I have no qualms about presenting the facts which clearly emerge from the declaration of assets”, he bluffed without presenting any facts and despite being asked multiple times.

If he can explain how subtracting €180,000 from €65,000 makes €32,000, he should, but he can’t. Instead, he attacks those who make it harder for the powerful to lie. Cassola’s questions are legitimate, and he’s asking the questions we all want answered, and Abela is obliged to answer them politely and respectfully. 

Arnold Cassola is not alone in facing the wild wrath of the wounded prime minister.

The placid Mark Laurence Zammit politely pointed out the obvious to Robert Abela: “How did you pay because there was no reduction in your income from one year to the next?” at which point Abela completely lost it and turned on the reporter.

“How I paid it? You know enough because the second irony is that in the blogs of this country which are all linked together, there was not only how it was paid, but from which bank account, the means of financing, that information is already public”, he ranted.

What are “the blogs of this country”? And how are they “all linked together”? And where is this apparently public information?

The reporter was flabbergasted:  “Can you tell me because I don’t know?”. 

But Abela was too hysterical to realise he was embarrassing himself and his country. “You know, you know”, Abela insisted with the reporter, “follow the blogs, and you’ll know. There is a particular blog that published the information on how it was paid”. 

Still baffled, the reporter protested, “You are being rather vague, I’m not understanding”. 

 “No, no, I’m not being vague; it was paid using a cheque,  a cheque, and there wasn’t a cent in cash”, he ranted.

That’s no explanation, of course. “A cheque” means absolutely nothing.  Where did the money to honour the cheque come from? Which bank account? Whose  bank account?

The numbers still don’t add up, and Abela knows nothing he says makes sense. He’s always vague and cryptic, and he never gives a straight answer because he’s got too much to hide.

Honest people don’t tell you to “follow the blogs”, they just tell you the truth, every time.