This is a country of Gaffarenas

I am not acquainted with Mark Gaffarena, the last time I saw him he was wearing a tartan-like bermuda and a tacky t-shirt having a coffee at Cordina’s in Valletta.

I did not recognise him at once but he looked at me with his stupid grin and I realised who ‘IT’ could be. It was not a menacing smile but a childish smile which conveyed a simple message:  “You can kiss my ass.” I looked back at him. I have nothing to be ashamed of.  

We had just written a story about his business association with Labour MP Joseph Sammut, the same Sammut who filed for libel this week… but more on this later.

Everyone advises me to be careful of the Gaffarenas. Thank God there are many more Gaffarena-like folk in this country.  And I have had to deal with my fair share of them.

The first time I wrote about Joe Gaffarena (Mark’s father) was in the Daewoo debacle.

Of course not many people remember that the Gaffarenas were a staunch Nationalist family. Very die-hard Nationalists they were, but they have of late become Labourites.  For obvious reasons.

The Gaffarenas, it has been suggested, are no different to other land speculators and businessmen. They believe that they should act and then answer questions later, when these are made.   

They specialise in constructing without a permit after buying land and property, and making deals and a quick fortune from developing that land. They have contacts everywhere and they know the name of the game.

But they are not alone. There are hundreds of Gaffarena clones out there.

Some people, and Gaffarena is not the only one, are experts in identifying amazing deals and making a killing.

And there are no political boundaries for these sorts of beings. 

The Gaffarenas, like all other cash-rich landowners and speculators, are in the best position to sponsor, or attempt to sponsor, or to dream of sponsoring, party activists and political parties.

And this is the problem.

For years now, the political parties have depended on these types to oil their expensive machine. The same machine that proposes policy, pontificates, legislates, decides and passes judgement on the future of many projects which have a bearing on whether someone makes a million or not.

Some individuals dress up like Gaffarena, in rather tasteless clothes, but others present themselves in expensive suits and are more refined. If Gaffarena made an unbelievable deal from land in the middle of nowhere or in an area which he will develop, it is nothing incomparable to the prime locations given to many hoteliers for a pittance – hoteliers who complain that they do not have enough state aid or help and who are presented with land for bloody peanuts. 

There are so many hidden, undeclared interests and networks, which include everyone – from those in the noble professions to those in the civil service.  

There is a lot of finger pointing in this Gaffarena saga of the half share he bought in a building in the capital, which the government then expropriated at a fantastic sum, leaving Gaffarena indecently richer. Lands parliamentary secretary Michael Falzon insists he did nothing wrong, and that he followed the same protocol which his predecessor, Jason Azzopardi, followed when responsible for lands.

Some consolation!

In an interview with MaltaToday Michael Falzon stands his ground and argues that he did not intervene politically. He does admit meeting Gaffarena but he insists that he meets other people too. He makes it a point to say he met Zaren Vassallo, a known bankroller of the PN.

But every time Falzon is asked if he blames the Government Property Division at the Lands Department, for the Gaffarena deal, he stands back and gives everyone the benefit of the doubt.

He then goes into overdrive and presents a new argument.

In the Café Premier matter, the government was accused of political interference and no intervention by the GPD, Falzon says. In the Gaffarena case, the opposite had happened and “I am still getting the flak”, he argues.

What is true, is that the Lands Department is in need of some serious restructuring. This newspaper publishes today the valuations of University lecturer and consultant Joseph Spiteri. He has chosen not to talk to the press but I take it that he too does not believe that anyone has done anything inappropriate.

Which brings me to Joseph Sammut.

The Labour MP surprises me. In the sense that I have yet to see him in action on something of political relevance. The only time I saw him acting or doing something remotely political was at the launch of the yes campaign for hunting in the spring season. But even there he was mum. Because like Mark Gaffarena and Michael Falzon, Joseph Sammut is a hunter.

He was a business associate of Mark Gaffarena and his electoral poster served as a backdrop to Mark Gaffarena in many social media posts.

Last week he filed for libel against me, Matthew Vella and Tim Diacono. Over a report that appeared online which simply stated a fact, that he was once a business associate of Mark Gaffarena. 

But worst of all he filed for libel and included everyone in the suit without checking his facts and the press law which, by the way, does not require an online editor to be registered. But what made me wonder, is why Sammut should sue for libel for being associated with Gaffarena at this stage.  

Is there something we do not know?

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The junior minister responsible for hunting, Roderick Galdes, has chosen to defend the decision by anthropologist Mark Anthony Falzon, the politically appointed chairman of the Ornis committee, to say absolutely nothing about anything.

Galdes’s Minister, Leo Brincat, does not even have the proverbial balls to instruct his junior minister to see that the political and publicly paid appointee should answer questions put to him by the media.

Falzon faces two important challenges. The first one is to convince himself and his committee that the turtle dove can be shot though it has become a notch closer to being threatened.

And secondly by convincing the members on the Ornis committee that trapping is not legal – vide what EU Commissioner Karmenu Vella said this week.

Obviously Galdes, under strict orders from Castille, probably from the Prime Minister himself, is effectively defending the indefensible.

And it is a great pity that the Sunday columnist Mark Anthony Falzon, who finds the time to lambast the government on Zonqor, has nothing to say about the difficult decisions he faces in the Ornis committee, which not only serves as a rubber stamp for Joseph Muscat’s pro-hunting agenda but also for all those who treat scientific evidence with contempt and make a mockery of the European Commission’s final call on Malta to ban autumn trapping.