WHY DID THE POPE AVOID MOSTA ON HIS TRIP TO MALTA ? ASK ALEX MUSCAT

Alex Muscat at the Mosta church announcement

It appears that the Pope's itinerary, during the recent visit of his Holiness to Malta, where Paul the Apostle was shipwrecked back in 60 A.D., on his way to Rome, was artfully planned, so as to avoid a potentially major pitfall, a stop in the town of Mosta. One of the reasons why the Pope avoided Mosta in the visit (it is Alex Muscat's hometown)was that the Vatican wants, at all costs, to avoid the Holy Father being seen in photographs in front of Mosta basilica, which has received Russian CBI passport funds from Alex Muscat, who ran the programme.

Give the diplomats in the Vatican due credit for their wisdom and foresight. One photograph could have jeopardised the entire Ukraine peace efforts of the Vatican, as well as the reputation of the Pope. The Holy See was eminently wise to avoid Mosta in the Pope's itinerary in Malta. 

When Alex Muscat*, who recently lost his position as Parliamentary Secretary for Citizenship (CBI), made the public announcement at the church last August, that €850,000 in passport funds would be spent on a new floodlighting project, public outcry was overwhelming negative, with angry commentators asserting that Malta had far more pressing needs for the funding than improving lighting at a tourist attraction, which the basilica is. Mosta is part of the 11th Electoral District, the district Alex Muscat represents. A number of other large church projects were also funded, in the period prior to the elections.

To quote from the Comments made at the time on TOM, redacting the identities of the posters:

"So the government uses our taxes to pay 700+ persons of trust, give hundreds of direct orders to their friends and give phantom jobs to party loyalists among much more, but we then "need" 850K from the sale of passports to buy some bloody floodlights."

• • "And how much do you guess it cost the taxpayer to set up Muscat's little presentation on how he's going to basically waste this money? This could have been a simple press release as usual but it is turned into a self-promoting event paid for by you and me."

    
    
    

"850K Euros to light an already well lit Mosta Dome!

There is a catch somewhere.....maybe it's a way to muzzle the Church and use it as populistic propaganda how wise the passport scheme was.

We are witnessing a party hell bent to please and appease those who are fed up of this fallacy of a legislation that landed us all (Honest and not so inclined citizens) in the humiliating FATF grey list.

I sense the PL wants to fight the EU on the issue of the passport scheme and this is his way to try and turn the public opinion against the EU for investigating Malta on the matter!

Old Electoral habits die hard!"

 

• "You know what would be a better use of these funds? If they got a team of some 40 people and paid them €20k each to spend their day going from one construction site to the other to look for irregularities and fining developers breaking the laws.

  Or a service where a couple of architects and lawyers set up an action squad where people can phone in if their building is in danger of collapsing from construction work nearby. So instead of relying on the police, who don't do anything (see the case of Janet Walker, whose house collapsed months before the fatal collapse of Miriam Pace's residence - she called the police when cracks opened up in her walls days before the collapse but the police didn't stop the works next door).

  Or maybe paying for extra civil servants so essential government departments worked longer hours than 8am till noon. So those of us who have to work normal hours for a living can get what we need after we stop work at 5pm.

  Or pay for more garbage collections, so again those of us who work night shifts or long hours can leave our trash outside at a more convenient time, like 7pm-9pm, instead of the current archaic system where trash can only be left out early in the morning.

  Or hire extra magistrates, judges and whatever else is missing, so court cases didn't drag on for 8-12 years.

  But no, I pay over €1000 a month in taxes so they can blow them all in lights to impress the tourists. What a dysfunctional country."

  
  

"A complete waste of money! and above all a vote catching trick by Alex Muscat. Our Mosta church does not need more lights. Is our Archbishop aware of this? Alex Muscat s only aim is to get more votes from Mosta residents...use the money more carefully please. You will only fool the gahans."

_________________________________________

*Alex Muscat, Corrupt Politician with Close Ties to Russia