Government allowing BOV to strangle press freedom

Bank of Valletta (BOV) has already withdrawn adverts from local media for reporting on the La Valette Multi Manager Property Fund (MMPF) in ways which the bank considers “hostile”. Hundreds of pensioners and small investors who did not understand what they were signing up to lost millions of Euros of their hard earned savings in schemes which were designed for experienced investors.

The local media that have been punished by BOV for carrying interviews and reports on the plight of these pensioners and small investors are reluctant to speak out against BOV’s move to muzzle them.

BOV is glad that its move is already having the desired effect as small and vulnerable news media simply cannot afford to lose thousands of Euros in a difficult time when alternative advertising sources are hard to come by.

Government who is the majority shareholder in BOV and appoints its chairman has so far said nothing about the bank’s use of its advertising clout to strangle press freedom in Malta and punish those media that do not want simply to be an extension of the PR office of the bank.

Media organizations have also so far remained silent on BOV’s threat to press freedom.

Several newsrooms of local media that receive thousands of Euros in advertising revenue from the BOV were warned not to report last Friday’s annual general meeting of the Fund in a way which the bank considers negative.

Last Friday during the annual general meeting of the MMPF, a pensioner likened the BOV top management to the Costa Concordia captain “who first drove the ship onto the rocks and then ran away and let the passengers drown.”