Which government of a country, with less than half a million citizens, has a cabinet of no less than 27 ministers and an army of over 1,000 political appointees employed to sustain a national system of cronyism?
We have a public service that is subservient to the scores of these political appointees and canvassers who walk the corridors of their ministries thinking up ways of how to buy the votes of those willing to sell their democratic right to these crooks.
Like the old fascist regimes of the 1930s, the only thing that counts now is unconditional loyalty to the party and its leaders. When faced with alleged crimes or abuse, the first duty of the citizen is to stay quiet.
In 2019, the social benefits scam for votes was devised. A backbench Labour MP, elected on the third district, a doctor by profession, became the central figure in what turns out to be a secret racket involving the forgery of medical certificates so that some 800 persons would defraud the public purse to the tune of €450 a month as fake sufferers of a proscribed severe disability.
In December 2021, two years later, the good doctor MP resigned after being superficially interrogated by the police. At the time, neither the police nor media reports spoke of any connection to a massive benefits racket.
In his Facebook farewell, Silvio Grixti professed his undying loyalty to the Labour Party and leader Robert Abela.
It took another 18 months for the pieces to come together showing that Grixti was just a middleman facilitator of a €12 million benefits racket, which some Labour ministers allegedly condoned and were happy to have their ‘customer care’ lackeys send some 800 vote selling fraudsters to.
When Times of Malta published the finer details of the racket, Abela and Minister Owen Bonnici issued the usual categorical denials we have become accustomed to for years now. This was in direct contrast to confessions made by some of the benefit recipients.
“I am convinced that no MP in any way participated, or directed someone to commit irregularities,” Abela said. “It was my office that alerted the police to what was happening,” he said, quickly adding that “someone has already assumed political responsibility”.
Whatever happened to criminal responsibility?
One hundred and forty-one fake beneficiaries of the scam so far have been taken to court. Why is Grixti not also facing charges of complicity in supplying the fake certificates used?
The benefits racket was too complex for it to be a one-man show- Eddie Aquilina
Did the Medical Board not take note of a sudden pandemic of “severe epilepsy” cases? Did they accept the odd similarity in the wording of scores of these fake certificates as coincidental? Were they told not to worry too much about it?
How did all these new “epileptics” find out about the scam and how to get to Grixti in the first place?
The plain truth is that he is not the mastermind of this scam. He is the Melvin Theuma of this Castille-run racket, who, two years ago, was given a secret pardon on condition that he does not name those also involved above and around him.
It’s just common sense. No medical doctor would risk his profession, his reputation, or his practice warrant unless he was confident that he was working for the firm and with its go-ahead. The racket itself was too complex for it to be a one-man show.
This was not like Labour ministers deciding to put hundreds of their friends, family members and canvassers on full-time public salaries.
This is not Ian Borg giving his personal photographer a €40,000 “consultancy work from home” contract or building illegal swimming pools in his back paddock.
This is not a €400 million Vitals heist or the Montenegro wind farm robbery either.
This racket is one part of a concerted frontal attack on our democracy committed by people who have hijacked the Labour establishment and the whole country.
