On attaining Independence way back in 1964, the Maltese people became masters of their own home in the middle of the Cold War and a world in turmoil. The old empires were being dismantled. New rivalries were manifesting themselves in the field of international trade.

Malta was left to its own devices and had to earn its keep through its own initiatives –and this when it had to undertake new responsibilities at the United Nations, the International Monetary Fund and so on.

This placed heavy responsibility on its top bureaucrats, who often found themselves in uncharted waters.

Latent weaknesses

Let it be said at the outset that the Malta Civil Service had proved its prowess under the test of war and was equal to its challenge during the trying times of social reconstruction after World War Two, and in the early years of Independence. It cannot be said with hand on heart that the bureaucracy advanced from strength to strength since then.

There where times when top civil servants did not stand up to the intrusions of assertive politicians. There were other times when the bureaucracy did not keep up with the imperatives of modern management. And there were other occasions where attempts at reform were misguided and proved to be more harmful than otherwise.

A time came during the Fenech Adami administration when a thoroughgoing reform was undertaken to catch up with the stern demands of modern management. At that time, senior civil servants complained that their problem emanated from excessive demands by politicians while politicians complained that senior civil servants abdicated their responsibilities. A definition of functions and responsibilities, and a modern approach to financial management, were considered basic to move forward.

Reform commission

On 27 May1988, a five-man commission, known as the Public Service Reform Commission was set up to carry out a thorough reform. The Commission highlighted some of the prevailing problems that called for urgent attention. It referred to “confusion over the roles of ministers, parliamentary secretaries, permanent secretaries and heads of department”, and to “ambiguities posed by the presence of large numbers of people who are not public officers in the constitutional meaning of the term, but who are paid out of public funds and who function in an official capacity”. It also referred to “anomalous relationships between the central agencies and the departments in matters concerning finance and staff”.

It made a case for “an urgent need to restore credibility in management systems”, and emphasised that the issue was “at the heart of the debate about administrative reform”.

Central theme

It declared that “the consensus in other countries is that decentralisation is necessary for the public service to function efficiently and effectively, indeed that it is the condition of good government”. The central theme was accountability.

The Commission insisted on tough action to root out patronage, corruption and incompetence, which means “exposing impropriety and incompetence, imposing quick effective penalties upon defaulters, adjusting administrative procedures that facilitate impropriety or compound the effect of incompetence”.

To emphasise its case, the Commission expressed concern at “the scant evidence of effective action against negligent and incompetent officials” among other matters.

The Commission was forthright when it declared that “therefore, there cannot be two standards of conduct, once for civil servants, one for politicians. Both share a duty towards a higher ethic, namely good government”.

These were fine, ringing words. In many respects, they produced a hollow echo.

Demoralisation

The Public Service reform proved to be an expensive exercise, which cushioned the senior civil service in particular but did not yield a corresponding return in terms of management performance or productivity gains.

The professional civil service was “decapitated”, in the sense that the service ceased to be a career service from top to bottom. Top positions started to be filled by people of “proven ability” from in or outside the service, all posts to be held on short tenure, and appointments could therefore conceivably be renewed or otherwise, depending on “considerations’ of efficiency, politics and other reasons.

Today, the delivery performance of the top management is woefully poor in sensitive areas. Time and again, when Malta was gearing up for EU membership, the EU stressed the need to strengthen Malta’s administrative capacity to implement and enforce the acquis. Quagos have continued to proliferate.

Appointments to these quangos are often patently capricious. This has marginalised the civil service and demoralised its aspiring stars.

Hardened arteries

This has hardened the arteries of the Maltese Civil service and made nonsense of the brave attempt to institute “a public service for the 21st century”.

We are left with layer upon layer of superimposed authority, wheels within wheels of intricate management and with various bureaucratic birds of paradise beholden to their respective ministerial authority.

A new interest group has emerged. It is interested in the kind of change that will allow top civil service posts to be filled by candidates considered to be “one of us”.

To hark back to the words of the Public Service Reform Commission, certain politicians who are subjected to diverse pressures may succumb, as they have succumbed in the past, to the temptation of factoring the service into the strategies of power politics. Willingly or unwillingly, the public service has come to be associated with the use of public resources for partisan or political gain.

None of this is consonant or consistent with the national good, or with the interest of the service and its customers.

End result

The end result comes to the surface, time and time again, when the Auditor General publishes his periodic Audit reports.

Year in, year out, the Auditor General practically repeats a litany of transgressions and shortcomings, some of which are outrageous. The wonder is not that senior civil servants treat the Auditor’s admonitions like water on a duck’s back, it is the failure of responsible ministers to hold their subordinates to account, and to see that the necessary discipline is dispensed, that confounds the electoral conscience.

Nagging questions

Is it not scandalous that outstanding arrears of revenue continue to exceed Lm400 million, year in year out (while the taxpaying community makes good for the government’s revenue requirements by steep taxation)?

Is it not outrageous that accounting officers blatantly disregard financial rules and regulations, at times flying in the face of the Auditor-General’s annual admonitions, without any of them being brought publicly to account?

Is it not farcical that the Auditor-General reports that his office could not verify certain payments effected in Gozo “because source documents are located in Malta”?

The powers-that-be have failed to arrest a rising dry rot, which makes the tax-burden borne by the average citizen all the heavier while the standard of public service management shows no marked improvement.

The nagging question is this: Was it beyond the ability of the powers-that-be to take the bull by the horns and do the necessary, or does the prevailing situation suit their convenience?

Doesn’t this situation merit a national debate, and an accurate assessment before we next go to the polls?

jgv@onvol,net