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Karl Schembri
A visibly hurt and surprised Prime Minister yesterday brushed off criticism of his son’s involvement in a lawyers’ translation company that has received more than Lm24,000 for the translation of EU documents over the last two years.
“It’s my son who’s the target now,” Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi said. “It’s alright, I take it as the cross we have to carry, us politicians, when we do our job. I can’t understand why, but that’s how things happen here.”
Speaking during the monthly press briefing yesterday at Castille Gonzi said his 26-year-old son, David, had only joined the company responsible for the translations, Global Translations Solutions Ltd, earlier this year when the company had already started carrying out translation works for the government.
Quizzed by MaltaToday about declaring one’s interests in public beforehand, a distraught Prime Minister said he agreed with making things more transparent. He added that such interests such as one’s shareholding, assets and business interests had already been declared by Cabinet ministers.
When asked by MaltaToday why the appointment of consultants could not be more open and transparent, Dr Gonzi retorted politely: “Do you mean issuing a call for applications?”
Earlier this week a Parliamentary Question put by Labour MP Gavin Gulia to Home Affairs Minister Tonio Borg revealed that Global Translations Ltd has received Lm1,279 in 2003 and Lm23,153 for translation services until August of this year even though the company was only officially registered with the Registry of Companies on 8 January 2004. Gonzi’s son is one of four directors and shareholders in their 20s who formed the company.
“Effectively at the beginning of this year he joined a group of other lawyers that had already carried out translation works for several years, as did other lawyers from different political backgrounds who are the brothers and cousins of so many others,” Gonzi said.
He added that his son’s company is now also being contracted by the EU to translate documents.
“I hope nobody comes out saying the company got the EU contracts because he is the son of the Prime Minister of Malta,” Gonzi said. “I accept that in politics one has to be accountable, but there is a limit to everything.”
Shifting the argument onto the Opposition, the Prime Minister also defended his two cousins, commissioned with his approval on the Mater Dei Hospital negotiating team.
He said he was aware of the “currents out there” and “the agendas” aiming to undermine the government at a sensitive time when he was holding critical negotiations with Skanska about the Mater Dei Hospital.
“I find it very, very strange that just because I’m taking a hard line with Skanska, coincidentally these stories about my cousins and my son start coming out,” Gonzi said. “I mean Paul Camilleri, one of the most able lawyers, was appointed on the Foundation for Medical Services four years ago, and now all of a sudden the Opposition raises the issue just in the week I was negotiating with Skanska.”
He said the same happened with his other cousin, Richard Camilleri, who is “recognised by everyone as one of the most capable lawyers and one who can give us some of the best advice, and yet he is attacked in this way by the Opposition”.
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