Watch: PM defends Neville Gafà and Chris Cardona’s new appointments

Watch: PM defends Neville Gafà and Chris Cardona’s new appointments
By Hot Malta Newsroom

VALLETTA – Prime Minister Robert Abela stood firm this afternoon in a press conference that crackled with palpable tension, insisting that the controversial appointments of Neville Gafà and Chris Cardona to senior public posts are “entirely merit-based and in the national interest.” The two men, whose names have dominated dinner-table talk across the islands for years, were this week named as special envoys to Libya and members of Malta’s international trade missions respectively, prompting a torrent of memes, radio call-ins and café chatter from Sliema to Gozo.

Gafà, a former OPM aide repeatedly linked to high-profile visa scandals and once filmed waving a pistol on TikTok, will now coordinate humanitarian corridors between Malta and Tripoli. Cardona, the ex-Economy Minister who resigned after being named in the Daphne Caruana Galizia murder probe and later staged an eyebrow-raising boxing match in Montenegro, takes up a role steering investment negotiations across North Africa.

Speaking in Castille’s frescoed Blue Room, Abela argued that both men “know the terrain better than any technocrat” and will serve on six-month contracts with “strict KPIs”. He rejected Opposition claims that the moves reward loyalty over integrity, declaring: “Malta does not have the luxury of benching experienced operators when energy security and migration flows are at stake.”

LOCAL CONTEXT – WHY THIS MATTERS
For a country whose population could fit inside Wembley Stadium, personal reputations loom large. Maltese political culture has long prized the art of “ħbieb ta’ ħbieb”—friends of friends—where networks forged at band club feasts and festa fireworks spill into boardrooms. The result: every public appointment is simultaneously a policy decision and a social signal. When the Prime Minister rehabilitates figures like Gafà and Cardona, he is not only shaping foreign policy; he is rewriting the boundaries of redemption in a society where “ħadd ma jista’ jkollu kollox” (nobody can have everything) is muttered over pastizzi, but second acts are still possible.

COMMUNITY IMPACT – FROM FACEBOOK GROUPS TO FISHING BOATS
Within minutes of the announcement, the Facebook group “Malta Past & Present” lit up with 1,200 comments; some praised the PM for valuing “street-smarts”, others posted side-by-side photos of Gafà wielding a rifle and Libyan militia leaders. In Marsaxlokk, fishermen who have long relied on informal Libyan contacts to secure cheap diesel expressed cautious optimism. “If Cardona can reopen the bunkering channels, we’ll save €3,000 a week,” said 63-year-old Toni “tal-Inċi” Borg, mending nets on the quay.

Meanwhile, NGOs warned that the appointments could tarnish Malta’s anti-corruption credentials just as EU Recovery Funds start flowing. “We risk exporting our reputational baggage to fragile states,” said Dr. Claudia Borg, policy head at Aditus. “That matters when Libyan counterparts already joke that a Maltese passport comes with a suitcase of cash.”

CULTURAL SIGNIFICANCE – THE MALTESE REDEMPTION ARC
Maltese folklore is steeped in tales of knights forgiven after brave deeds and sinners redeemed at the village patron saint’s feet. In modern form, that narrative plays out on talk-shows like Xarabank, where audiences cheer tearful apologies and public penance. Abela is betting that the same cultural reflex will extend to politics. Yet the strategy carries risk: a Lovin Malta poll released tonight shows 58 % of respondents believe the appointments “damage Malta’s image abroad”, while only 27 % see them as pragmatic.

CONCLUSION – THE BET THAT COULD DEFINE A TERM
As the sun set over the Grand Harbour, fishing boats sounded their horns in a spontaneous salute—some say for the returning tuna fleet, others claim it was ironic applause for the political theatre they had just witnessed. Either way, the Prime Minister has doubled down on a uniquely Maltese equation: experience plus controversy, divided by national necessity, equals political capital. Whether that calculus holds will be tested not only in Tripoli boardrooms but in the village band marches and bar debates that still shape this island’s destiny. One thing is certain: Gafà and Cardona’s second acts will play out under Malta’s unforgiving summer sun, where every shadow is short and every secret feels communal.