News | Sunday, 31 January 2010

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Louis Galea for Auditors’ Court

The Prime Minister has nominated Speaker of the House Louis Galea to take up the post of member of the European Court of Auditors.
The former education minister will replace Josef Bonnici, who served in the Court of Auditors for the past five years.
After losing re-election in 2008, Galea was touted to take up the role of President of the Republic but was instead installed as Speaker of the House.
With Galea taking up this post in Brussels, along with John Dalli as Commissioner – both of them leadership rivals to Gonzi in 2004 – the PN trims yet another of its veteran members.
Galea was born on 2 January, 1948 and elected to parliament in 1976. As secretary general of the PN from 1977 to 1987, he was instrumental in setting up new party clubs throughout Malta and Gozo. Under his tenure, the party also founded its youth and women branches, as well as a workers’ secretariat.
He was made social policy minister in 1987, then home affairs minister in 1992, and between 1998 and 2008 was education minister.
Galea stood out as a visionary intellectual, a strategist and practical organiser, but a decade marked by allegations of political patronage harmed his leadership ambitions in the Nationalist party where he came a distant third in the leadership contest in 2004.
Under the Auxiliary Workers Training Scheme, over Lm4m were spent on heavy machinery from private contractors, mostly from constituents of Galea’s two electoral districts.
Galea was also subject to an inquiry into the alleged embezzlement of public funds at the Foundation for Tomorrow’s Schools (FTS), 30% of direct orders going to constituents from Galea’s two electoral districts.
In the 2008 election, Galea’s tally dropped by a substantial 438 votes, which lost him his seat to newcomer Franco Debono.

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