“Nahseb ghandu dritt dan il-guvnott.” There they go again. Economy Minister Chris Cardona tried to ward off questions related to the appointment of Karl Cutajar (an 18 year old) to head the board of Fort Security Services – a newly set up government company. The controversy has raged for a few days now, especially since it has featured on Malta’s version of Wikileaks quite extensively (spreading to other relatives of Cardona’s Chief of Staff) so you’d expect the Minister to be better prepared to fend off questions.
Well, he is either not prepared or he is ignorant of the goings on under his watch. Just wait for some idiot to come and tell us that so long as Cardona has no “mens rea” then its ok. They’ll tell us that notwithstanding the fact that the answers given by Cardona when “cornered” by the press with very legitimate set of questions smack of anything but a meritocratic approach to public appointments we must assume that he is cleaner than Caesar’s Wife.
As it happens judging by Cardona’s reply we have the following facts:
1. An 18 year old was employed by MIMCOL as an executive clerk (which could be quite ok – and is where the buck stops with “ghandu dritt dan il-guvnott”);
2. The 18 year old has been placed at the head of Fort Security Services which is a company that will be taking care of security on sites where the government is winding down operations such as Malta Shipbuilding;
3. His job on the board is not remunerated;
4. The best one – there will probably not be any persons employed by Fort Security Services so it’s anyone guess whether the 18 year old Cutajar will be doing all the night watching on his own (sans remuneration);
5. It is a complete and utter coincidence that the eighteen year old put at the head of a one-man security company sans remuneration is the nephew of the chief of staff of the minister under who’s remit the very same company falls.
There you have it. We have moved far beyond the “Ceci n’est pas une pipe” days. The denial of the patently obvious (tmeri is-sewwa maghruf) is now becoming a day-to-day business at the Taghna Lkoll factory. Never, never-ever has this amount of patent disregard of meritocracy while abusing the government appointments system reached these levels.
Taghna Lkoll indeed.
“Jghodd mhux dak illi taf imma lil min taf”.
