NEWZ on Monday 20 May 2024

Steward set up fund for bribes, investigators suspect

Investigators suspect that Steward Health Care set up a €1 million “political support fund” for passing bribes to Joseph Muscat, Keith Schembri and Konrad Mizzi.

The funds were held by Swiss firm Accutor AG, the Times of Malta reported. Accutor itself is suspected of being used as a money laundering hub for payments linked to the hospitals deal.

Both Muscat and Mizzi signed “consultancy agreements” with Accutor shortly after leaving office. Schembri is suspected to have indirectly benefited from the fund.

Investigators concluded it could not be a coincidence that the three formed relationships with Accutor and ruled out that they did so independently of one another.

Muscat denied any wrongdoing, claiming he had no knowledge of the political support fund. Mizzi said that the allegations against him were purely speculative.

‘Don’t vote Labour’, says former Labour activist

“Do Malta a favour, do not vote Labour”, says former Labour councillor Desmond Zammit Marmarà.

“As a person who has militated in the Labour Party for so many years, it would never have occurred to me some time ago that the day would come when I would be advising citizens of goodwill not to vote Labour”.

Writing in the Sunday Times of Malta, Zammit Marmara said that a minority of Labour exponents was allowed to “inflame passions among the most gullible Labour supporters”.

He criticised Prime Minister Robert Abela for insisting that voters will decide on the Vitals inquiry. This was “another false narrative created by Labour” and “absolutely unacceptable in a democracy”.

He said that electoral victories are not a means of whitewashing past abuses of power. Zammit Marmara said he is and would remain a Labourite but was “sadly forced to admit that the present Labour government’s decisions and actions are a perversion of democracy”.

“This is a Labour government only in name. On June 8, I shall not be voting Labour”, he said.

Gzira mayor questions elections’ integrity

Popular Gzira mayor and former Labour member Conrad Borg Manché questions the elections’ integrity. This followed an intervention by the Broadcasting Authority to stop the broadcast of a TV show in which he participated.

He stressed that independent candidates like him “don’t have the funds to set up tents everywhere”. “The major parties spend five whole years brain- washing people through their media”, he said.

Instead of creating balance, the Broadcasting Authority defended this imbalance, he criticised. Borg Manché said he does “not exclude seeking legal action because this has gone too far”.

Grech: ‘Vote for third party equals vote for Abela’

Meanwhile, Opposition Leader Bernard Grech delivers old messages on repeat. On Tuesday, Grech said any vote for a third party or candidate was equivalent to a vote for Robert Abela.

On Sunday, he insisted that any vote not for Nationalist candidates was a vote for the Labour Party. This narrative was already used in the PN’s last general election campaign managed by Chris Peregin.

In an article published on Sunday, Peregin listed “PN voters’ support for non-PN candidates” as one of eight reasons why “the PN will lose big” at the MEP elections “despite everything”.

Weather

The Met Office predicts a ‘fine’ day. Temperatures will reach 29°C.