Debono: will not support government with Gatt

MP Franco Debono has said in his blog that he “will not support the government as long as Austin Gatt is minister.” In his blog on Wednesday he said Gatt is responsible for the BWSC and Arriva fiascos and engaged in his secretariat and eventually as consultant Claudio Grech who has “been found guilty by the Court of Magistrates of counterfeiting a police ID card to impress his girlfriend. The crime is liable to up to three years imprisonment and is a crime against public trust.”

In his blog Debono said that while people like Claudio Grech have been promoted by the PN government to public posts of trust and are being presented as the new face of the PN and part of the revival going on inside it, MPs like Debono, Jeffrey Pullicino Orlando and Jesmond Mugliett are banned from contesting the coming election on the PN ticket.

Debono wrote: “As a reward, some two years after this judgment Claudio Grech formed part of Austin Gatt’s private secretariat.  Austin Gatt had just managed to scrape through in a bye-election in 1998 and in a wink he became parliamentary secretary in Castille and later minister for justice. Thus Claudio Grech after the conviction was employed in the Justice Minister’s private secretariat. I have my doubts whether such a conviction excludes you from applying as an Arriva driver. Where is George ‘scientific tests’ Pullicino now? Where is Austin Gatt? Did he really call me mad as reported in some media?

“Austin Gatt was responsible for the BWSC and Arriva fiascoes. I am sure that with every day that passes you understand even more why I will not support the government as long as Austin Gatt is minister.”

In another blog Debono said that the court finding Claudio Grech guilty of forging an ID card and remarked” that his motivations were to show off and impress his friends and girlfriend due to a lack of maturity and responsibility… a crime that happened years ago, doesn’t render the crime less serious especially if it is punishable with up to three years imprisonment, and it is an offence falling under the Title of the Criminal Code entitled ‘Offences Against Public Trust’. This shows the seriousness of the crime independently of the punishment meted out.”

Debono wrote: “After all, he wasn’t so young at the time; since it was only two years after that he started working at Castille. Moreover amongst the insults I received in the past months some people had no difficulty mentioning trivial facts which happened ten or twenty years ago… a court judgment is an official document constituting an official pronouncement by the court to which everyone can make reference. If the Labour Party or anyone else has made reference to the judgment in the past it doesn’t preclude me or others from making reference to it.”

Debono reminds Grech what he said about him just a month ago: ‘Speaking on the recent events in parliament that saw PN MPs Franco Debono, Jeffrey Pullicino Orlando and Jesmond Mugliett voting against the government, Grech said the situation was ‘surreal’.

“These individuals were elected on a PN ticket and now the electorate is witnessing them going against what they voted for,” he said, adding that he fully agreed with the executive council’s decision to condemn their actions.’