What the Sunday papers say…

MaltaToday leads that it would be ‘unreasonable’ to expect MFSA to prevent all failures, claiming that despite its efforts, the chances that licensed entities fail cannot be eliminated. Quizzed about the €7 million alleged misappropriation at the Maltese Cross Financial Services firm – whose books the MFA did not inspect for six years – an MFSA spokesperson for chairman Joseph V. Bannister stated that no supervisory system is waterproof.

The newspaper also reports that Labour’s One TV and maltastar.com censored taped dialogues that had revealed damning comments by the former Nationalist deputy mayor in 2010 Cyrus Engerer with former Sliema mayor Joanna Gonzi. In the records – which were deposited in court as evidence during the compilation of evidence against former Sliema councillors Bobby Cali (PN) and Martin Debono (PL), Engeger is heard saying it would be easier to “hit them with a big hammer” after Gonzi had declared that she wanted Cali and Debono “dead.”

Sunday newspaper Illum reports that the police’s Rapid Intervention Unit (RIU) may be scrapped in favour of the return of the SAG and the mobile squad. In another story, the newspaper quotes home affairs minister Manuel Mallia in stating that the “police is working on any leads about the Mafia in Malta.”

On the backpage, the newspaper reads how the Gudja local council was never consulted about the earmarked development at the Air Malta international airport. The site is earmarked for the development of 130,000 m2 of land.

The Sunday Times of Malta says an Ebola patient alert at Mater Dei Hospital on Saturday turned up to be malaria. The patient, a Senegalese man who has been living in Malta for four years, was admitted to an isolated ward after he developed suspicious systems.

The Malta Independent says that six months before the March 2015 deadline expires for a new gas power station, one of the four members of the ElectroGas consortium – Siemens – is yet to invest.

It-Torca states that the EU commission President-designate Jean Claude Juncker may ring up the changes among the commissioners after several MEPs expressed “cynicism and concerns” at the appointments.

PN newspaper il-mument leads with Simon Busuttil’s comments in stating that the party approved 31 new candidates for the local council elections, and stated that the PN was being revamped into a modern, professionally run organisation.

Kullhadd states that former finance minister and current PN MP Tonio Fenech is being side-lined by party officials, and that he is consequently “considering whether to contest the forthcoming general election/”