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Letters •
December 05 2004 |
It has been reported in the case of the Mater Dei Hospital that the government led by Prime Minister Dr L Gonzi, had waived penalties amounting to Lm5 million, which the Swedish contractors Skanska should have paid for not having met completion dates, as set in the contract signed with the PN government.
On reading this, I literally blew my top - not an unusual occurrence when faced by the crass hypocrisy of ‘Political Gods’ who try to project an image of fairness and justice but then do the opposite!
The reason for my great ire is that at the same time that the Lm5 million waiver had been reported, a letter dated 2 November was sent by Hon. Tonio Fenech, Parliamentary Secretary at the Ministry of Finance, to the Ombudsman, Mr Joe Sammut, informing him that his (the Ombudsman’s) “recommendation” (the Ombudsman cannot order but only “recommend”) to me, had not been accepted by the Ministry of Finance, for which the Prime Minister himself is responsible. The amount involved was the lordly sum of Lm872 ! But the sum of Lm5 million in penalties due by Skanska was easily waived with a stroke of a pen!
The story behind this classical example of how ‘Political Gods’ tend to be so strong with the weak but so weak with the strong”, dates back to 1998, when I objected to pay income tax on the alimony I was paying to my separated wife as a result of a consensual agreement, also sanctioned by the Court, when other De-facto separated tax-payers who had not been paying any alimony to their spouses - and hence may have been causing a financial burden to the social assistance department, besides the hardship caused to their family - and were finally dragged to Court and forced to pay a certain sum in alimony as stipulated by the Court, had that amount of alimony deducted from their income for income-tax purposes!
When the Commissioner of Inland Revenue refused my objection, I turned to the Board of Special Commissioners to see if justice in our country is truly blind or not. While during the hearing of my case I heard many sympathetic expressions for my case from the Board members, when it came for their decision, the Board refused my appeal on the basis that the legal interpretation of the law in question referred to alimony payments “determined by the courts.” And so alimony I was paying was determined by consensual agreement, this did not qualify for deduction from my income! Can anyone imagine a greater legal injustice than that?
So I referred the case to the Ombudsman, who immediately took action since the case was a very clear one of gross unfairness. Indeed I was informed by the Ombudsman with a letter dated 1 June 1999, that the Ministry of Finance had agreed to review the law in question and a recommendation to amend the law would be recommended (they obviously realised that an injustice was being perpetrated). “Meanwhile an exemption on an individual basis would be given… in cases similar to yours”, read the letter sent to me by the Ombudsman.
Despite the Ombudsman’s “recommendation” and promise by the Ministry of Finance, no exemption was ever given to me. So I took my case to the Court of Appeal, where again, despite the sympathy shown by the Judges sitting on the Appeal Court, particularly the former Chief Justice J. Said Pullicino, when the Appeal Court finally came to a decision in February 2004 (after 3 Chief Justices had heard the case!), the same interpretation was given. And hence, I consider that another legal injustice was meted out to me.
So I wrote to the Prime Minister asking for his personal direct intervention since he was responsible for the Inland Revenue Department and the Ministry of Finance. I reminded him of the times when administrative decisions had been taken in the past to waive penalties to tax defaulters etc… without there being any “recommendation” by the Ombudsman or any other Court or Tribunal decision to back the waiver. All Dr Gonzi did was to pass the ball back into the Commissioner of Inland Revenue’s court.
When the Commissioner and the Ministry again refused my plea to the Prime Minister, I again took the case to the Ombudsman since I had now been asked not only to pay the tax I had refused to pay between 1996 to 1998 on the alimony payments, but the sum of Lm872 was added in penalties and interest!
Yet again the Ombudsman came to the conclusion that I was being made to pay for the delay until the case was finally decided by the Court of Appeal, when I was certainly not responsible for all that delay. “The delay for the case to be decided by the Court was due to circumstances on which you (the undersigned) had no control”, wrote the ombudsman in his letter to me dated 27 September 2004. The Ombudsman added that “The court sentence was based on the legality of the case without any consideration of the element of fairness.” Need I add more?
On the basis of the above conclusions, the Ombudsman recommended yet again, that “The penalties and interest” be refunded to me. So I again appealed to Dr Gonzi’s sense of fairness and justice and asked him for his own personal administrative decision. Yet again Dr Gonzi passed the buck to the Parliamentary Secretary, who again refused the Ombudsman’s “recommendation” in my regard!
And yet, Skanska’s Lm5 million in penalty dues were waived by Prime Minister Gonzi without batting an eyelid. But waiving Lm872 when this is recommended by the Ombudsman, was asking too much of Dr Gonzi’s sense of ‘fairness.’ One thought now constantly haunts my mind: what if I were a PN sympathiser?
To put the record straight, the unjust law I rebelled against was finally amended and came into force in 2002. Which confirmed that my crusade against it had been justified. Still I was made to pay the penalty for it!
Eddy Privitera
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