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Karl Schembri
As was widely expected Foreign Affairs Minister John Dalli resigned yesterday afternoon with junior minister Michael Frendo hastily sworn in less than an hour after the Prime Minister accepted the resignation.
The resignation was tendered after five weeks of controversy surrounding allegations that Dalli exercised ministerial influence to get an Iranian shipping line (IRISL) to choose a firm as its Malta agent in which his relatives had an interest.
The controversy also involved the revelation that the foreign ministry made more than Lm40,000 worth of airline bookings through a travel agency which is a shareholder in a company directed by Dalli’s two daughters.
“This morning minister Dalli offered me his resignation and gave me his explanations for it… I wrote back informing him that I was accepting his resignation and this same morning I asked the President to appoint Michael Frendo as foreign affairs minister,” Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi said after the lightning swearing-in ceremony yesterday.
Strangely enough, the media were informed that a swearing in ceremony was about to take place for a new foreign minister about one hour before Dalli’s resignation letter was officially published by the Department of Information at 1.28pm.
Denying all the allegations made against him, Dalli sent his letter in Maltese to Gonzi at around 12.30pm, together with a four-page “appendix” in English giving his interpretation of the “attacks” against him.
Accompanied by his wife Irene, Frendo had only the essential audience for his promotion inside the Ambassadors’ Room – the place where such occasions are always held inside the Palace.
A terse President Fenech Adami made no remarks after reading out the official letter of appointment. The Prime Minister was flanked by Principal Permanent Secretary Joe R. Grima and some close aides, with only journalists facing them.
No live choreography on Net Television and none of the fanfare that usually surrounds the state rituals with the backdrop of the Palace frescoes and red carpets: a far cry from normal swearing-in ceremonies, yesterday’s had the hallmark of hurried business that had to be concluded as soon as possible.
Asked for his comments after the ceremony, Gonzi said he had accepted Dalli’s resignation although according to him the allegations regarding IRSL remained unsubstantiated.
“The minister offered his resignation and explained in his letter … that he could no longer work as minister in the circumstances,” Gonzi said. “In my reply I told him that from the information I have regarding the IRSL case it doesn’t seem that the allegations are substantiated…In the circumstances I felt I had to accept his resignation.”
In his letter, Dalli says that as a government front-liner taking important decisions he was used to “continuous attacks” from the Labour Party, but this was “the first time” he faced “attacks from different quarters.” He said he would remain a government backbencher.
“The strategies plotted against me in the last weeks from different quarters created circumstances under which, I feel, I cannot work effectively,” Dalli wrote. “That is why I am submitting my resignation as government minister.”
Gonzi’s official letter of reply stated that he was accepting Dalli’s resignation, as well as his suggestion to take up the travel agency issue himself and request a benchmarking exercise with the Auditor General.
In his appendix, Dalli throws in more doubts about what he calls “the origin of the attack” regarding the travel agency case, four days since he said he excluded nothing when asked whether he thought he was being framed by his own party.
“As I told you in my e-mail of the 10 June, my concern is the origin of the attack,” Dalli wrote. “The main attack took place on the 9 June, three days before the EU elections through the publication of a story in The Times of Malta. Wonder of wonders, PBS departed from their normal practice, and not only covered the same story but practically read out the Times report.”
He then goes on to single out one PBS journalist for asking questions about the case.
“From inquiries that I have made all the indications are pointing to a particular journalist,” Dalli wrote. “Ivan Camilleri, a journalist with PBS, kept up the attack on various occasions, for example in a press conference with yourself on the announcement of the EU parliamentary elections and in a talk show he hosts.”
The journalist is the brother of Gonzi’s Communications Coordinator, Alan Camilleri. Attempts to contact Ivan Camilleri yesterday proved futile.
“I maintain that I have done nothing that requires censoring,” Dalli concluded, “but the situation that has developed through strategies worked out by different interests is one in which I cannot function. This is why I have decided to tender my resignation.”
Asked yesterday, Gonzi denied Dalli was framed by the party.
“No, no that’s something which definitely didn’t happen,” he said. “There was no frame-up, absolutely. The circumstances were what they were…everyone knows what they were. It seemed to me that I had to accept his resignation.”
When contacted by MaltaToday last Friday the PN’s Secretary General, Joe Saliba, refused to comment about Dalli’s statement that he did not exclude being framed.
“I don’t see any point in commenting,” Saliba said. “I don’t even understand what he means.”
Dalli’s former portfolio for foreign investment is now under the responsibility of Austin Gatt, the Minister for IT and Investments.
Asked whether he was surprised by his appointment, Frendo said: “It happened suddenly…I was doing my job as parliamentary secretary and in a matter of an hour I found myself in the Palace of the President.”
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