Opinion: Get it together, Robert

The Shift should thank the prime minister for saying that a small newsroom dedicated to investigative journalism could have cornered ministers, permanent secretaries, and public servants single-handedly. So much so that he feels the need to change the law to grant public officials immunity.

He told the press that the magisterial inquiries being requested are all the result of the newsroom’s work.

Knowing the country’s leader values the hard work of investigative journalism carried out by the dedicated staff at The Shift should fill every single member of that team with pride.

His words about The Shift’s work bring tears to the eyes:  “A blog of false news, Shift News, fake news – they specialise in reporting falsehoods.  Ninety per cent of what they report includes falsehoods,” was the latest accusation by the prime minister against the independent press this week.

To get the real spirit of the prime minister’s comments, you’ve got to watch it straight from the horse’s mouth – such bitterness, such exquisite hostility, so much spittle, such burning fire in his eyes.

Robert Abela is only just starting his ascent towards his pinnacle.  His clarity of purpose is unmatched. He’s out to get The Shift, and he’s not hiding it.  “Their only agenda,” he said, “is to promote falsehood and evil”.

“You know how convinced I am about genuine journalism,” he told the MaltaToday journalist, “You are a genuine journalist who represents a genuine media house – but you would do good to study this phenomenon of Shift News and others like them because their only agenda is to push falsehoods and evil”.

Robert Abela has ensured the close connections between “that genuine media house” and the government remain concealed by filing over 40 legal challenges against The Shift to block information on the contracts it is awarding to Media Today, co-owned by Saviour Balzan.

Why is Abela so angry with The Shift?  Why has he completely lost his head over their “fake news”?

The answer is painfully simple – he knows that The Shift reports are accurate.

He’s fully aware that The Shift’s meticulous, detailed reports are based on verified documents, reliable information, and published reports by the Standards Commissioner and the National Audit Office.

Abela is fuming because he knows The Shift is far more credible than any of his nonsense.

“A blog of fake news,” the prime minister said about The Shift.  Even that is false.

The Shift isn’t a blog.  Abela knows that, but he also knows that nothing incites Labour’s diehards more than the words “blog” and “blogger”.

Labour groomed its base to hate “bloggers”.  That coveted title was awarded to Daphne Caruana Galizia.  She, too, was relentlessly accused of lying, of fake news.

She, too, was targeted for exposing Labour’s corruption.  But everything she said about 17 Black, Electrogas, Vitals, the Panama papers, Nexia BT, Pilatus bank, and SOCAR was proven right.

On the 87th month since the brutal assassination of Caruana Galizia, another Labour leader publicly and viciously attacks a truly independent news platform committed to the defence of press freedom. The prime minister publicly disparaged The Shift, accusing it of “fake news” and “falsehoods”.

Which of The Shift’s news reports were false? Justyne Caruana’s abusive employment of her boyfriend Daniel Bogdanovic wasn’t false.  It led to Caruana’s resignation.

Amanda Bartolo’s fake job was very real and very abusive – and was lambasted by Labour’s own Standards Commissioner. So was Rosianne Cutajar’s.

Everything The Shift revealed was true—the Air Malta saga, the Malta Philharmonic Orchestra scandal, Silvio Schembri’s district offices in Luqa and Siġġiewi, and his links to the beneficiaries of his generosity with our land at il-Qortin and that Villa Rosa alley sold for €134,000 when it was worth €3 million.

Abela is most furious about The Shift because it exposed his own scandals.  It revealed how Ryan Pace, Robert Abela’s assistant at his private legal firm, was given 11 government jobs.

It exposed Abela’s greed. It revealed how, with his wife Lydia, an application was filed for a residence on their Xewkija property in order to benefit from a government grant through the Irrestawra Darek Scheme (a government grant to restore traditional properties).

The Shift pointed out that it was evident that a development with eight double bedrooms, a reception and lounge area, a breakfast room, a basement with a gym and wine cellar, a large outdoor pool and landscaped gardens wasn’t a private residence.

Once Abela got the grant, Lydia submitted a development permit application to convert the farmhouse into a guesthouse.

The Shift exposed how the prime minister dismantled a common wall between his property and that of his neighbour, planning to rebuild it on his neighbour’s land. Magistrate Simone Grech has now ordered that the work must be halted.

The Shift revealed how Abela acquired the Xewkija farmhouse for €268,000 and then bought a further 1,500 square metres of adjacent land for another €315,000.

It revealed how Abela acquired a sprawling villa in Żejtun for the price of €600,000 when it was estimated to be worth more than €2 million.

It revealed that the Inland Revenue Commissioner did not even investigate how this was possible.  Tax Commissioner Joe Caruana refused to explain why his department didn’t send its architects to assess the actual value of Abela’s property as is standard procedure.

Abela is livid with The Shift for exposing the massive discrepancies between his ministerial asset declaration and his actual assets.

The plot of land he acquired in Xewkija was nowhere to be seen in his declaration.  There was no explanation for how he paid €180,000, and yet his bank deposits increased to €387,000, and another €20,000 worth of Malta government stocks.

He blew his top because The Shift exposed his links to Bonnici Brothers and Christian Borg and the fact that Abela’s government keeps finding new ingenious ways of handing over more taxpayers’ money to them.

Abela is upset with The Shift because they keep reminding everybody about his luxury yacht, an Azimut estimated to cost some €300,000 with annual maintenance costs of around €30,000 per year. The Shift revealed that Abela shifted his yacht’s berth from Birgu to ta’ Xbiex and failed to provide evidence that he paid for the service.

The Shift also revealed that, coincidentally, the Ta’ Xbiex marina concessionaires will soon be handed a spanking new restaurant at the water’s edge, paid entirely from taxpayers’ money, to boost their profits.

Which of the above and the other countless revelations by The Shift are fake? When the truth is so incriminating, the only thing Abela’s got left to do is claim those truths are fake.