James Debono
Labour MP Joseph Sammut has taken umbrage at the Office of the Prime Minister for not flying the national flag on public buildings at half-mast on Good Friday and for “offending the national sentiment”.
He raised this issue during question time in parliament, where he quoted an internal memo instructing the police not to fly the flag at half-mast on Good Friday.
Home Affairs minister Carmelo Mifsud Bonnici confirmed that the instruction was issued by the OPM.
A spokesperson for the Prime Minister told MaltaToday the order was issued for organisational reasons in 2007, but nobody had complained about this decision in the past three years. Sources told MaltaToday that lowering the flag on every public building, including schools which are closed in the Easter period, proved to be a logistical nightmare for the authorities.
Ironically for a representative of Joseph Muscat’s self-styled ‘progressive’ party, Sammut ended up criticising the Nationalist government for making the rare distinction between Church and State.
Sammut hit the headlines last year when he proposed launching a separate bus service for immigrants residing in Hal Far because the regular number 13 route was always packed with immigrants.
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