“When I joined the Nationalist Party I identified myself with the party without any difficulty. But today I have been making an effort for a long time, asking myself whether the Nationalist Party is still the same party which I joined in the Seventies.
“I have come to the conclusion that if I had to make the choice today, I wouldn’t have chosen to join.”

Carmel Cacopardo, the former investigator at MEPA’s Internal Audit Office, whose job was unceremoniously ended in April last year after his contract was not renewed, did not mince his words in his resignation letter from the Nationalist Party (PN), MaltaToday has learnt.
Cacopardo, who had been a PN member for the more than 30 years, said in his resignation letter dated 16 January and which he delivered by hand on the same day:
“When I joined the Nationalist Party I identified myself with the party without any difficulty. But today I have been making an effort for a long time, asking myself whether the Nationalist Party is still the same party which I joined in the Seventies.
“I have come to the conclusion that if I had to make the choice today, I would have not chosen to join,” Cacopardo said in his resignation letter addressed to PN secretary-general Joe Saliba.
“For those who behaved improperly all the time, an attempt is being made to hide and hush things up. However with regard to my work at MEPA, I was obstructed from continuing the work that I was doing at the Audit Office with a thousand excuses.
“The true reason (for this) is never mentioned: an intolerant attitude towards criticism and those who think independently was born. Those who do not tolerate string-pulling are being constantly ignored.
“It is useless for me to enter into more detail or mention names. This information is in the public domain and has been so for many months,” Cacopardo said.
Cacopardo then makes a scathing indictment of the PN’s stock excuse that the party does not get blamed for the government’s misdeeds.
“The responsibility of what happened is not only of those who did not act properly: it is a collective decision. It is also the responsibility of those who had to take consequential decisions and did not do so.”
He said this situation was happening because since Independence, Parliament has been dominated for long stretches of time by a single party that “bulldozed over everybody because it always had an absolute majority”.
Cacopardo said that this situation will repeat itself “with actors that alternate unless this country does not feel the need of a radical change in the type of people who are elected to Parliament.
“In particular I think that it is principally in the interest of real accountability that there should be as soon as possible the third party in Parliament.
“Because those who declared that they went into politics to change it have ended up as part of the system, constantly seeking to justify the unjustifiable,” the former MEPA investigator said.
“In view of this, I am of the opinion that I do not belong to the Nationalist Party anymore. I cannot identify myself with the Nationalist Party today. Therefore I am informing you that I am resigning with immediate effect as a Nationalist Party member,” Cacopardo ended his resignation letter.
Cacopardo was a PN frontliner since the 70s, serving in various posts over the years as well as member of the party’s executive committee for around 12 years. In the 90s he served as information secretary, deputy secretary-general, and president of the PN administrative council. He contested three general elections in 1987, 1992 and 1996.
He has since been wooed into the folds of green party Alternattiva Demokratika (AD), which only yesterday presented him at a press conference as its spokesperson for sustainable development.
However his green credentials were put under the spotlight after last month MaltaToday revealed that Cacopardo had represented clients back in 1995 as architect for a massive development that would have changed the same site where he now flanked the Green Party to decry the destruction of agricultural land in Hal Kirkop from a supermarket development by Charles Polidano

czahra@mediatoday.com.mt