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.

"Imnalla ghal flus li jidhlu bil bejgh tal-passaporti ghax kieku laqqas dawl mal knisja jkollna"

It looks like a friend of friends has some floodlighting to sell.

ARE WE SURE THAT THE CHURCH IS NOT BEING USED IN ORDER TO SOMEHOW SHOW HOW BENEFICIAL THESE PASSPORT FUNDS ARE? IS THE CHURCH ALLOWING ITSELF TO BE USED AND TO HAVE ITS MOUTH SHUT BY SO MUCH 'GOVERNMENT HELP'? WHY ALL THIS MONEY SUDDENLY FOR CHURCH ENTITIES? I HOPE THE ARCHBISHOP KNOWS WHAT HE IS DOING.

......................but YOU grabbed the vouchers, corrupt monies and all !!!!!

the vouchers come out of our own taxes, whats your point?

Beggars can't be choosers. While PN Party MPs secretly award themselves €600 s weekly payrise, also came out from our own taxes.

If we didn't 'grab' our vouchers, we'd have been hit by a double-whammy. We'd have nothing, but would have paid for all the leeches to have something. Your lack of logic is deplorable, but not surprising. Gahan.

Mhux kulhadd Gahan u mejjet bil-guh Paul!

One needs to have electricity for the lights to work. Wouldn't you think?

because Alex Muscat needs the people from Mosta to re-elect him

And the Church is party to his fund-raising!

And how much do you guess it cost the tax payer 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.

Who owns these churches. .....the goverment or the Catholic Church?

I have the same question.

Who care, exept usuals cover up dreamers.

Another typical zammit Lewis gahan has spoken

Populism spending, The Election can't be far off. The Curia must be shouting out "thank you " a strange gift, considering how the Church excommunicated members of the Labour Party, not too long back.

Thank goodness that not everyone holds as much grudge as you do Mr McIntosh, the interdiction was lifted 42 years ago and each of the Archbishops following Mgr Gonzi have aired their standings on that happenning with Mgr Cremona and Scicluna even apologising on behalf of the church and the latter even blessing the graves in the "Miżbla".

One may keep remembering but needs to forgive or he will never move forward.

I do not need lessons from the likes of you, nor shall I accept them, and my mindset is no business of yours. You are of course entitled to an opinion, as am I. There would be no need for forgiveness if there were no "sin" in the first place, think about that.

What a waste of 'public' money on lights when there are numerous social projects that would have a direct benefit to the people. The vanity of The Church should never come before the needs of the people.

And then we have to put up with power cuts - even during heat waves - because Enemalta admit that the demand for electricity exceeded their peak projections!

Billi tuża flus maħmuġin biex mingħalik ittaffi l-ħmieġ xorta m'intix se tinfeda!!!!

More light-pollution. Voting time coming soon?

850K euros to light an already well lit Mosta Dome!

There is a catch somewhere.....maybe its 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!

It has been proved that part of the money coming from the passport sales was coming from applicants who later was found that the applicants had illegal intentions in applying for Maltese passports and consequently their approvals and applications have been revoked. Who knows how many other applicants have gone Scott free. Is the church accepting this electoral gimmick.. Jahasra f'hiex wasalna. Il Flus saru issa ukoll l'Alla tal knisja.???????

What a waste, in the meantime we are destroying another 40,000 m2 of land for solar panels, to reduce what exactly?

Did they manage to buy the Church's silence, too?

What's this with government using public money on Church property? Surely the government does not own the Rotunda, or am I wrong?

Its called Return Of Investment. They have to return the money to the voters/good Christians. Ah and don't forget to give some for fireworks too! They are very important

Money down the drain really. How are better church lights going to improve our life?

What can I say? Looks like we shall be sorely missing the cash-for-passports scheme.

Was not the church the first group to condemn such passports when illegal immigrants are being pushed back? And now they are accepting from the same bloodied grail? Also from the other side of the fence, how can the government decide to use the people's money for private organizations, whoever they are? Are not those monies, as said by Muscat and after by Abela, of the people for the people?

Junior Minister abuses of his portfolio to donate money from the IIP to light up the church and increase his chances for election. Mosta being one of his constituencies

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.

Why don't you divert funds to young couples, middle income earners, who are desperately trying to enter the housing speculative 'market'...

In this way you get more young couples becoming home owners, cushioning their staggering bank loans, improving their quality of life...mela lights

Then we find no money to clean up the roads and public areas!

With this money, the government should be buying back land which was given by this and previous administrations for private exploitation.

At least with Judah's money we do something positive!

That is not what the passport money was supposed to be for. This is corruption.

Grant of €850k from taxpayers money whilst APS loans money to the taxpayer at commercial interest rates.

Dirty money shouldn't have been accepted by the Curia.

Matthew 21:13

This is the money from the "Scheme" that was supposed to buy Malta a lot of foreign talent.
I am wondering how many medals Malta won at the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games, given all the talent that the EU Passport Sales Scam was expected to attract to Malta.

It was a joy to see persons from all around the world, even from the poorest of nations, win gold medals in sport disciplines which require years of hard work and preparation.

Malta not only did not win any medals, but I doubt that it was present for the closing ceremony on Sunday.

A "government" of shameless liars, incompetents and corrupt people.

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...

Could we please use some of the funds to keep Cospicua clean instead? the entrance to The Three Cities as you come through the Ghajn Dwieli tunnel is nothing but a sheer disgusting mess and filthy, unhealthy environment. Triq It-Tlett Ibliet is disgusting. The minister said the main roads would be cleaned and maintained! I guess it's time to fire that minister too! totally useless politicians and government workers. Cleansing Department my A**!!! #CleanFilthyBormla!

Cospicua is fine as it is.
Whether clean or dirty will not make any difference in the election results.
They will still vote PL.

Spending some of the income earned from the sale of citizenship on the restoration of religious buildings will not make these funds any cleaner! It might be a pre-election political gimmick, but that's all! Bzar fl-ghajnejn!

The only reason I don't have issue with this, is because Mosta Dome is a tourist attraction and have historical value. Otherwise I would be 100% against state money (be it dirty money or not) going to any religious entity. Separation of Church and State is crucial to a democracy. Plus they are both corrupt, so you don't want to have them working together!

So we ruin our environment for tourism.

And as the planet burns they install floodlights to illuminate the temples to the gods. Better had they spent the money on a shade made with solar panels. It seems that this time our prefered suppliers have floodlights on sale.

Remember that for mass meetings you need lighting

Holy money laundering.

Hey we are spending 850k for lights so we can further drain our country and overload our power-station, because we don't give a crap about this climate change nonsense, we want more pollution, we don't care about the environment, we are Labour, we are the future, we are all in for DESTRUCTION! Hail the Labour Party.

If I had any say I would refuse politely these funds and ask the Minister to try to garner more votes by using them diligently and not trying to involve also the Church.

The Church should show in practice that independence fro any political move is very important for the mission that the Church is there for.