MaltaToday can confirm that GRTU vice president Mario Debono is still representing the Small Businesses Chamber, despite a statement by its director-general Vince Farrugia that Debono, currently facing criminal charges over alleged importation of counterfeit medicines, “will not be representing GRTU” in any way until the conclusion of the case.
Farrugia had earlier confirmed that Debono would no longer be speaking on behalf of the GRTU pending the outcome of the ongoing court proceedings.
But Debono is currently listed as a party to the appeal case 278/2010JZM – i.e., against the Magistrate’s Court decision to grant temporary relocation of a pharmacy belonging to Chemimart Ltd to Republic Street, Valletta – both in his personal capacity, and also as the representative of the Pharmacy Owners Section within the Chamber for Small and Medium Enterprises (GRTU).
The other parties in the appeal are Collis Williams Limited, Spiteri Maempel Limited and JV Pharma Limited.
Farrugia subsequently clarified his position on Debono’s ‘auto-suspension’, telling MaltaToday that was still free to remain representing the pharmacy owners’ section as the decision “lay with the section members” adding that Debono had received the third highest number of votes in the January elections for the GRTU Executive Committee.
On his part, Chemimart owner Reginald Fava insists that Debono has no ‘locus standi’ in the case as he is currently under criminal investigation and has actually suspended himself from the GRTU council.
In a separate article penned for the GRTU monthly newsletter, Farrugia had called on journalists to ‘shut up’ over the Mario Debono case, adding that “mudslinging” was not to be tolerated whilst also praising Debono’s virtues as a “person who devotes time, energy and brains to defending his colleagues in the pharmaceutical sector”.
Farrugia wrote that the suspended vice president is “undeserving of all the flak that third parties and journalists are fomenting against Debono and the GRTU”.
In the same article, Farrugia also wrote that “we have ensured that while the (criminal) case is sub-judice, Mario Debono will not act as Officer of GRTU.”
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