How Caruana Broke His Promise and Let Me Down

Former bus company executive and long-time GSD supporter Peter Sardena flung down a public gauntlet in his personal bout with the Chief Minister at the question and answer meeting organised by GBC this week. With two deft questions he had Peter Caruana on the ropes - the latter reluctantly admitting : "You put me in an awkward position" in front of a packed audience in the John MacIntosh Hall. The Chief Minister denied the truth of all of Sardeña's claims. And Sardeña pursued his attack in Tuesday evening's rain when, armed with a sign which read: "Caruana u can't be trusted to lead us any more", he haunted Caruana's hustings visit to homes in the Moorish Castle Area.

Sardena, formerly a staunch supporter of both Caruana and the GSD, has vowed never again to support the man who has let him down, breaking promises - made on the doorstep of the cathedral after Sunday worship - not only to Sardena but to his relatives...while keeping the jobless father and family man dangling like an uncertain puppet for more than a year and a half.

UNFIT TO LEAD

"The time has come for the voters to realise, as I have, what kind of person Peter Caruana is - that he has proved himself unfit to lead, that he breaks promises and that he is not to be trusted," Sardena told VOX following his brief public confrontation of his former friend.

"At the MacIntosh Hall meeting I put two questions to Mr Caruana which he failed to answer fully and since the programme did not allow any response from the questioner, I think I should clarify certain aspects of my questions as well as commenting on Caruana's incomplete answers.

"My questions were:

"Why did you abuse the trust and confidence I placed in you for as long as one and a half years after my sacking, during which time you raised my hopes with repeated promises of a job only to then pressurise me to withdraw my claim for unfair dismissal - in exchange for a poorer paid job with six months probation, a three year contract and no payment for lost earnings?

"Why did you lie?

*Why did your Government, when acting as employer, deliberately engineer delays in the Industrial Tribunals with the endless and substantial use of taxpayer's money and as a tactic to delay the findings of the hearing and avoid damaging details emerging to the public before the elections? What are you hiding from the electorate Caruana?"

Caruana answered: "You put me in an awkward position":

"the huge amount of taxpayers' money he is spending in legal fees... exceeds the wages I was owed"

It can only be awkward if you do not want to tell the truth, need to hide something, or if your conduct was unreasonable?," Sardena retorts in a written statement about the incident.

"He admitted finding me a job - although says he did not give it to me because of my ‘excessive demands' However. these demands were basically to get back the 18 months' wages which I had lost due to his authorised sacking -the time that he took to come up with the job. Bearing in mind that the job itself had a pay scale much lower than that in my previous job and that the new job was based only on a three year contract, this was hardly a fair offer."

"What is really excessive and unnecessary is the huge amount of taxpayers' money he is spending in legal fees - an amount which if it were disclosed probably already exceeds the 18 months of wages I was owed and asked for.

Why would he be concerned with my wages demand and yet not be concerned with spending more that what I ask for in legal fees. Why doesn't he disclose the fees?

"He also mentioned the Union involvement. However, it was Montiel who conducted the so called negotiations, and we now know of his GSD affiliations and loyalties... so I am not surprised that he would not press Caruana, his future boss, on this or any other contentious issue."

In his statement, Sardena chronicles ,by date, the series of events surrounding his dismissal, reinstatement, further dismissal and eventual job offer that led him to confront and publicly question the man who let him down.