Civil society NGO Repubblika called on prime minister Robert Abela to uphold promises made after the publication of the public inquiry report a month after it was published, stating that “the prime minister must get off his yacht and begin implementing what he promised a month ago”.
The public inquiry report, compiled by a panel of judges who were tasked with determining the state’s role in the assassination of Daphne Caruana Galizia, concluded that the government had actively aided and abetted a climate of impunity and corruption which led to Caruana Galizia’s murder.
“We are here today, in front of the office of prime minister Robert Abela, to bring attention to the fact that in spite of the rhetoric and posing, a month has passed and the prime minister has done absolutely nothing,” Repubblika president Robert Aquilina said.
“In spite of the public inquiry’s conclusions, along with its condemnation of his friends who are still in government and within the Labour party, Robert Abela is choosing the continuity of impunity, with all the risks that this brings to our country and our people,” Aquilina added.
Repubblika’s president further maintained that Abela does not have “the ability, the strength and the courage” to remove disgraced government officials like former prime minister Joseph Muscat and justice minister Edward Zammit Lewis from the party’s fold.
“A month ago, we called for the removal of these politicians from the government as well as the Labour party with the assurance they would never be allowed to occupy public service roles,” Aquilina said.
“Instead of this, Abela is letting figures from Muscat’s Cabinet knock on people’s doors and speak to constituents so they can grab votes and force us to deal with them for another term,” he added.
Repubblika also called out Abela for further fostering the climate of impunity flagged by the inquiry through attacks on “journalists, lawyers and others working tirelessly to ensure the truth emerges and justice is done”.
“This disgusting campaign is not only occurring through party media but also via social media from people who are evidently being told to do so by the government, the Labour party or their criminal friends,” Aquilina said.
Bully bobby has no balls to act.
bobby is completely sterile.
To translate the well known French expression “ The more things change, the more they remain the same”.
Total impunity guaranteed by the crooks for the crooks…
How about the E.U.cutting off funding until the Government delivers on its commitments to the Venice Commission, Moneyval and the FATF?
Corruption only thrives when the money supply is there to feed their greed, cut off the funding and it changes the game and maybe, just maybe, justice can finally be delivered?
That’s what I always recommend:
1. FATF has to blacklist us for at least 6 months.
2. The EU should freeze funding for Malta, until it is satisfied that things are truly happening, but not on paper.
3. All politically exposed persons investigated for the past 10 years, by the FIAU, the Director of Revenue and other Regulatory Institutions.
4. All passports issued, since inception, under the IIP Scheme, published, with personal details of introducers, country of birth and residence, capital assets and source of wealth.
Excellent and very valid points but my huge concern remains that as long as these investigations are undertaken by Maltese institutions they will be hugely compromised and drag on interminably.
International investigators need to be appointed because as Pieter Omtzigt, the Moneyval Rapporteur, so aptly stated in December last year, and it is still the case, not a single successful prosecution has been brought.
European funds are only helping the criminals to get their % share.
Exactly and hence the reason Godfrey and I agree that the E.U. funding needs to be suspended until all those involved are prosecuted. Perhaps by the International Court of Justice in the Hague??