Franco Debono to table Joe Cassar motion

PN backbencher Franco Debono said that he will be presenting the health minister Joe Cassar motion next week. 

Debono has been toying with a threat to file a motion of no-confidence against health minister Joe Cassar, for the last few weeks after the PN's executive confirmed an election ban on the MP.

Debono's motion, whose text he posted on his personal blog, follows another motion against his own government's energy policy, by calling on the House to demand that the Delimara power station ceases the use of heavy fuel oil from powering its new turbines.

"According to the doctrine of individual responsibility, and the prime minister's repeated declaration that everybody has to face the consequences of his actions, this House resolves that it has no faith in Minister Joseph Cassar who has to be censured for these shortcomings and must therefore resign," Debono's motion reads.

On Saturday, Debono announced that he would vote with the Labour motion against the privatisation of parking areas. 

In a comment to MaltaToday, he argued that if a parliamentarian told his prime minister that he would not support him and that said PM continued to ignore this warning, then one could describe the Prime Minister as a "gambler".

Tomorrow, parliament reopens and everyone is awaiting to see whether the Prime Minister will take on Franco Debono and debate the motions, or else wait until a budget vote is taken following the budget in November. 

In the latest of a spate of posts on his personal blog, the maverick Nationalist MP Franco Debono has declared that he would be voting in favour of Labour's recently tabled car park privatisation motion.

"I have already made it clear I will not support a government with Austin 'ghamilna pipi' Gatt in Cabinet. Hence I, will not support any of his decisions, " Debono wrote today.

Debono was reacting to Transport Minister Austin Gatt's comments, who dubbed Labour's motion which calls for the repeal of the privatisation of car parks as a way of "abusing some of the most precarious of workers, the parkers".

Gatt was referring to the unpaid car park attendants who are licensed by Transport Malta to collect gratuities from motorists, in return for their assistance while manning the public car parks.

In his blog this morning, Debono further queried how Joe Theuma found himself in Austin Gatt's ministry and what kind of work he was doing, and whether he was qualified, adding that the media never bothered to enquire about him.

Theuma's past jobs consisted of Chief Operating Officer at CT Park Ltd, while he was also responsible for "special projects" executed within the Ministry of Education, Youth and Culture.

Debono further wrote that Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi's fear to remove Gatt from Cabinet, following one scandal after another, is already "unexplained and sinister", but his expectation that his minister can continue to steamroll over everyone is close to "diabolical".

"So after all these warnings and giving them all these chances, I will very clearly be voting against Austin Gatt in the Car Parks motion, and not least because these issues should not be tackled in the middle of an election campaign. Other countries have laws prohibiting these practices."

Debono also felt that since some weeks ago "people very close to Gatt mobbed the entrance to the Stamperija". This shed an important light "on his contribution to political polarisation in Malta since the turbulent 1980s".