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Carol Lady Harvey of
Prestbury
Guernsey
Further to the series of articles in the MaltaToday which I and many other exasperated shareholders, I can assure you, are also following, I would like to state that for the last thirty years I have said nothing publicly. The reason for my long silence had been because I was brought up to believe in the rule of law and that our courts would one day prevail in establishing the truth and value of my families’ and many others shareholding in the National Bank of Malta.
While I can understand that little was to happen under an extreme socialist government which also expropriated private property across the board, it is time to point out that sadly the Nationalist party was only too happy to wash their hands of this case in typical Pontius Pilate style.
More insulting and untrue is ‘the ex-nationalist MP’ reference to the ex-directors and shareholders in their law abiding and unselfish act as being cowards.
This insult is not only an insult to all the shareholders still alive today who signed under extreme duress but to the memory of my late father Austin Cassar Torreggiani, an ex-director of the National Bank of Malta and former President of the Federation of Malta Industries whose main objective was to support the industrialization of the Maltese Islands and I was delighted to see it was also confirmed by Karmenu Farrugia’s article in last Sunday’s
MaltaToday.
It would be a further travesty of our fundamental human right to the ownership of property if we the shareholders are to witness yet again the selling off of the final stake that the Government of Malta still holds in the Bank of Valletta plc without a conclusion to this ongoing court case.
While I have recently been told that the plaque dedicated to my late grandfather Antonio Cassar Torreggiani as founder of the National Bank of Malta has been removed from the Bank of Valletta at 45 Republic Street Valletta, this will do nothing to erase him and his life time dedication to Malta from our memory.
It is true also, that the court case pending now for decades, has also gathered evidence that proves beyond any shadow of a doubt that the National Bank was solvent when parliament removed its banking license and passed over its business to the council of administration and then again to the new bank as we know it today – Bank of Valletta plc.
With all of this I continue to believe in the rule of law and hope that as I now approach the age that my father passed away prematurely that I and the rest of the innocent shareholders who also trust in our courts will see that justice prevails.
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