[WATCH]: Debono to Pullicino: keep 12 March 1996 in mind

In his latest blog MP Franco Debono tells Minister George Pullicino to keep the date 12 March 1996 in mind. Debono mentioned this date reminding Minister Pullicino’s proposal that before accepting PN new candidates for the coming elections, they should be submitted to “scientific tests”.

Debono said that he is going to provide Pullicino “with some really good material for his scientific tests. Follow this blog. The crime under s172 of the Criminal Code deals with counterfeiting of seals, stamps or other government marks. It falls under the Title ‘Of Crimes affecting Public Trust’ and the applicable punishment is from thirteen months to three years imprisonment. Imprisonment means jail, prison.”

Claudio Grech falsified ID card of policeman

Claudio Grech, one of the new candidates of the PN and pushed to contribute to the renewal of the PN parliamentary group after the coming election, the right hand man of Minister Austin Gatt was charged and found guilty in a Criminal Court with having falsified a Police I.D. Card. The matter had escalated at the time and the opposition had even requested the resignation of the Minister. Lawrence Gonzi had defended Grech.

The outcome was the promotion and appointment of Grech as executive secretary of the e-Malta commission and e-Government; chief of staff at Austin Gatt’s Ministry which included the handling of all Government investments; Chairing the advisory committee of Government on ICT and the Malta Government Investments Limited and among other appointments, CEO of SmartCity Malta after having negotiated the deal himself. Grech had another brush with the law when he was private secretary to Austin Gatt. In 2001, he had even threatened to ask the PSC to investigate Valletta Police officers.

In his various positions within the Maltese government, Claudio Grech has had access to a wide ranging information base about the Maltese electorate. In fact he was responsible for Malta Electronic Certification Services Ltd, the organisation which provides digital certification services to all citizens in Malta. Although one should not assume that he still has access to this information, or that this information will be used in his role as campaign advisor to the PN, he still has access to MITA. Grech had resigned as Chairman of MITA but was asked to stay on by Austin Gatt as an advisor.  

Writing in his blog today, MP Franco Debono who has been interdicted from being a PN candidate in the coming election said that “Minister George Pullicino in a recent PN executive meeting suggested new candidates should be submitted to certain scientific tests without specifying.”

Debono writes: “I have challenged him and challenge him again to tell us if the candidates which were approved in that meeting would all pass from these tests he had in mind. In the same meeting the party banned three members of parliament from contesting the next election for the grand sin of disobeying the whip. Now disobeying the whip, if capricious might be wrong, but it is not the ultimate sin.”

Franco Debono has been one of the most active MPs since elected to parliament, proposing several fundamental reforms to introduce accountability and transparency in public administration and politics and human rights for citizens.

Debono said in today’s blog that he is being punished for promoting these values. “Corruption, lack of accountability is far worse. Disobeying the whip affects only the party; corruption and lack of accountability affect the whole people, the country so they are much more serious... And I challenge again George Pullicino that if there are newly approved candidates who fail, then he should resign.”