Case closed… Ziggi!

I will be forgiven if today I am accused of being paranoid.
But yesterday a newspaper had on its front page a title which read as follows: “Ministry ‘lacked control’ on travel expenses”.
For a minute I thought there was some new revelation in the auditor’s report for the period when John Dalli was foreign minister in 2004.
But I am afraid this was not the case. The title referred to another report the auditor general’s report on the year 2006.
The ministry was the foreign ministry, and I believe the minister then was Michael Frendo.
However what is curious, if not alarming, is that yesterday at the same time, in the same House, another more relevant report was tabled.
This was presented to the House but conveniently ignored by the same newspaper, which by the way is aptly called The Times. It was also forgotten by everyone else.
The report is four years late, and it refers to a request by the Prime Minister for the auditor general to investigate the sale of air tickets in the aftermath to John Dalli’s resignation.
It makes interesting reading and it proves nothing about John Dalli but a lot about the extent to which all the ministries flouted procedure... including by the way the office of the prime minister.
Now, perhaps a few snippets would be useful to refresh some significant memories from 2004.

The year was...
It was the spring of 2004 when allegations were made against John Dalli by those with a clear sympathy for the Gonzi camp. John Dalli had just lost a leadership battle with the magnanimous Lawrence Gonzi.
The whispering campaign was about some ‘very serious’ allegation that Dalli was involved in. No one really knew what it was all about.
But they, the spin-doctors, did know and they were referring to the false allegations by Joe Zahra. Anyone who would like to look at the complex story should really look through the archives of MaltaToday. It reads like a chapter from Macbeth.

What they thought
But many outsiders, including John Dalli, thought the reference was linked to the purchase of Lm40,000 worth of airline tickets from a private company Tourist Resources Limited.
Dalli argued that he had followed procedure at all times. Of half a million liri in airline tickets spent by the Ministry for Foreign Affairs in 2004, Lm40,000 went to one private company.
In his resignation letter John Dalli had purposely mentioned PBS reporter Ivan Camilleri – brother of Gonzi’s then communications coordinator Alan Camilleri – whom Dalli accused of having “kept up the attack on various occasions” by picking up The Times report on the airline tickets and feature it in the PBS news bulletin.”
Indeed yesterday in the PBS bulletin (at least the 6pm one) PBS kept up with its tradition of being economical with the truth. No reference at all was made of the auditor’s report in yesterday’s 6pm news bulletin.

Parting shot
Four years ago Dalli’s parting shot in his resignation letter alluded to a backstabbing from within the party itself – even close to the prime minister’s office.
John Dalli had claimed that the purchase of Lm40,000 in air tickets was “the excuse used by the Prime Minister to accept his resignation, short of not being accused of any wrong doing.”

Dalli argued that the real reason for his “forced resignation” was the fabricated Joe Zahra report on alleged kickbacks received for a medical equipment tender at Mater Dei Hospital.

“The airline tickets report is totally irrelevant as can be construed from PN secretary-general Joe Saliba’s declaration that the real reason for my forced resignation was the Zahra report, and all I am expecting is a confirmation of this to clear this issue once and for all,” Dalli had told MaltaToday.

Well, that is as far as the facts go.

Other fact
The other unwritten fact is that this latest audit report continues to confirm what Dalli has always insisted.
That is, that the Prime Minister believed the Joe Zahra report even though he said he did not base his assumptions on that report.
Here was a man (Joe Zahra) who would mingle with the Where’s Everybody crowd and the Where’s Everybody crowd would mingle around Gonzi. Why shouldn’t Gonzi believe Zahra?
Later it transpired that Zahra was a big fat liar.
The Courts had found the former freemason, police sergeant, Lorry Sant lackey and former Bondiplus consultant Joe Zahra guilty of forgery and condemned him to two years’ imprisonment. The case is still on appeal.
If that is the case, it shows to what extent the PM was praying for something to rid himself of Dalli.
The PM has said that he considers the case closed. So convenient, I thought.
What I do not understand is how the PM had the gall to exculpate Dalli three months before the election, when technically he did not have a copy of the auditor’s report.
Well, the answer to that is to be found in the quest of every politician for every potential vote.
So desperate was Gonzi not to lose any vote, that he was willing to retrace his steps and rewrite the history of the so-called investigations of John Dalli.

Rehabilitation
Only late last year was Dalli rehabilitated by a nervous looking Lawrence Gonzi.
In his writings, Lino Spiteri – a former Labour minister and now a political analyst – had compared John Dalli to a live albatross around Dr Gonzi's neck.

“In clearing him, the Prime Minister did the fair and correct thing. But he also removed the albatross and the harm it could do not only up to the general election but also afterwards, particularly should the Nationalist Party be defeated.”
Dalli went on to make a very good showing at the polls, nearly getting himself elected from two districts, including the 10th.
If he had elected himself in the 10th it would have definitely spelt the end of George Pullicino, the disgraced minister responsible for MEPA before he was demoted by Gonzi himself.
Soon after Dalli’s resignation, Pullicino – who loves sailing with Charlie Azzopardi aka il-Poodle, who will very soon be facing criminal charges in court – told me that “Dalli is history”. Quite telling, I thought from someone who supported Gonzi in the leadership campaign.
Unknown to both Pullicino and his mentor Gonzi, Dalli was blessed with resilience, stamina and an obsession to clear his name.
And perhaps that is what Gonzi does not quite realise. As he grapples with his electoral promises he knows that this sequence of events have weakened him in the eyes of many people.
He does not exude the confidence that was expected of him.
This time he does not have the power base to decapitate Dalli, as he did in 2004.
If only we could look into the future.
But then I nearly forgot, God is a Nationalist, and so is Gonzi!

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