Mr. Paul Muscat

A CLEAR CONSCIENCE: SAVIOUR BALZAN INTERVIEWS COSPICUA'S IMPULSIVE MAYOR, PAUL MUSCAT

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Mr Muscat still enjoys the support of the Labour counsellors in Bormla and the Bormla constituency.

Paul Muscat is married to Connie and has four children, Charmaine 27, Geoffrey 25, Clive 18 and Melanie 18 (twins).

He is originally from Rabat, but at the age of seven his family moved to Bormla.Paul Muscat was always attached to politics – as a boy he would miss school to attend to the counting of votes at the Knights Hall.

What did Dom Mintoff mean to you, I asked.

‘He was everything, his greatest achievement were his social services reforms.' Paul Muscat continued, ‘Mintoff would abuse and scold you but then he would turn to you and call on you: Let us get on with the work.

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Mr Muscat reminded me of a family that had visited him recently.

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Paul Muscat suggested that nation-wide there must be at least 5,000 individuals who are faithful Mintoffians.He started off in politics as assistant secretary of the Bormla Labour party club.

He insists that he owes a lot to Marie Louise Coleiro, a former MLP secretary general and now an MLP parliamentarian.

‘She instilled in me the value of not being corrupt.'

I questioned whether the vote rigging allegations had strained his relations with her.

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Paul Muscat said that then he was not in favour of any of the former Labour ministers taking the helm.He felt that the party needed a new man.

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I asked Paul Muscat if he was an impulsive person?‘Yes, I am, that is Paul Muscat.'

How did he explain his popularity at Bormla?‘We help people in need.'

Paul Muscat explained how they had raised money for those who could did not even have the money for funeral arrangements.

‘We have just raised over Lm1,000 for a child suffering from cerebral palsy to be taken abroad.The mother and child has to take her child abroad six times, and each time we have to collect the same amount.'

Mr Muscat talked of the free private lessons that the council organises for those in need of further education.

I queried whether the public had the wrong impression about poverty.He admitted that it was sad to hear people say that poverty does not exist.

‘There are many social problems in Bormla.' But did he serve everyone in the same way?‘I do not believe in vendettas,' he retorted with much conviction.

I turned to party politics and the party leadership election.

I asked specifically whether he owed an apology to Lino Spiteri, the former MLP Finance minister.

‘I do not owe him any apology,' he replied.

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But it does not stop here, Mr Muscat spoke about a particular industrial action.When he had faced Tony Zarb about this industrial action, (Zarb was then the union port secretary) he was told that he was in the right by Mr Zarb.But nothing happened after this.He went to speak to Karmenu Mifsud Bonnici and he told him to speak to the GWU's secretary general, Anglu Fenech.

It later transpired, according to Paul Muscat, that Lino Spiteri was backing the industrial actions.
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Paul Muscat had given the false impression through third persons that the election for Labour leader in 1992 had been rigged and ballot sheets had been added to favour Alfred Sant.
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Paul Muscat led me to another subject, the MIA strike action.Mr Muscat is also involved in the GWU.

‘It isn't true that we damaged equipment in the fire fighting section.We simply put vehicle equipment on the ground, deflated tyres, hid fire engine ignition keys, disconnected the wires and employed other delaying tactics but I can assure you that there was no damage at all.'

He added that it was also untrue to state that workers had offered to act as strike breakers.

Back to the vote rigging allegations, the Bormla Mayor told me that he had nothing on his conscience.
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When the Labour party organised its last general conference before the general election, Paul Muscat was the brains behind the 110 signatures collected before the conference aimed at blocking any move to hold a snap election.

Mr Muscat was not surprised with the 1998 election result.What are his views of Alfred Sant today?

‘I do not see him because I am out of the party.I hope that when and if he is in government again he will govern in the right way and protect the rights of the less fortunate.'

Are you still a member of the MLP?

‘ Yes, I am a paid member,' he told me.

What does he think of the European Union?‘I do not know enough, both parties are not giving enough information.'

Paul Muscat remarked that Malta is the most heavily taxed place and the place where tax evasion is rampant.And he would like to see more consensus politics and he thinks that in education, the cooperation between Louis Galea and Evarist Bartolo is positive.

Of his constituency, he says that he has the 100% support of the council with the exception of the PN representative who is acting under instructions from Pietà.

‘I believe I do good.'

He argues that he has no apologies for staying on as mayor after being denied representation as a Labour rep.

What about the hoo ha on the Lm13,000 direct tender spent on the rehabilitation project?

‘There is nothing irregular here and I have dared them to pin- point where the irregularities exist.'

Then why all the fuss, I asked.

Mark Montebello, the renegade Dominican priest and Joe Paris, the former president of the MLP Cospicua club were also there, along with Edwin Bartolo, better known as il-Qahbu, who has served a long prison sentence for his role in interfering in the electoral process and Paul Muscat, the Cospicua mayor.
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Mr Muscat has admitted to fabricating a story about election rigging in the Alfred Sant versus Lino Spiteri leadership election in 1992.
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When Cospicua Mayor and estranged Labour member Paul Muscat was contacted he insisted that he had no idea whether a manifesto or something of the sort was a topic of conversation : "I did not stay long there, so I do not know if something of the sort was discussed."

Mark Montebello, the renegade Dominican priest and Joe Paris, the former president of the MLP Cospicua club were also there, along with Edwin Bartolo, better known as il-Qahbu, who has served a long prison sentence for his role in interfering in the electoral process and Paul Muscat, the Cospicua mayor.
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Mr Muscat has admitted to fabricating a story about election rigging in the Alfred Sant versus Lino Spiteri leadership election in 1992.
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When Cospicua Mayor and estranged Labour member Paul Muscat was contacted he insisted that he had no idea whether a manifesto or something of the sort was a topic of conversation : "I did not stay long there, so I do not know if something of the sort was discussed."