The Maltese political landscape has for long been polluted by party political partisanship. Partisanship throws logic out of gear. At its worst, it emarginates common sense. In all situations, it is harmful to good governance.
Good governance is all about cleanliness and efficiency. When the issue of good governance falls prey to partisanship, the ship of state is in danger of losing its bearings.
The above are sensible home truths – not platitudinous mantras. Nowhere are they more relevant in Malta than in the murky area involving allegations of corruption.
Political polarisation dramatises the situation. Colourful charges or allegations generally emerge from opposition sources. On less frequent occasions, they come from quarters untainted by politics.
It is standard practice for official quarters to belittle, even dismiss, such charges.
In such circumstances, those who say “There is no smoke without fire” are neutralised, and the status quo prevails.
Key questions
In the ensuing vacuum, the key questions remain answered.
Why aren’t serious allegations of corruption submitted to independent scrutiny in broad daylight?
Why is it that the Commission Against Corruption is not automatically involved? What has kept successive governments from actively introducing legislation to protect whistleblowers?
There have been far too many serious allegations of corruption during the past several years. Most of them involve public funds. The latest has to do with the Mater Dei hospital project. Mater Dei has been popping up at the top of the charts far too often for comfort. It has been a long saga, and while it lasted, the overall cost of this project escalated from Lm40 million to Lm250 million at last count!
More questions
I will not deliver judgment on the allegations that have been made, but it seems to me at once fair and reasonable to ask why such allegations haven’t passed routinely through the filter of independent investigation.
Transparent investigation would have established the facts. If the facts proved the allegations to be unfounded, the air would have been cleared once and for all. As it happened, suspicion continues to corrode confidence without anything having been proved – except that no one knows who was responsible for the millions of liri that have been siphoned in circumstances that continue to raise questions.
All of this brings us back to square one. Public opinion grows firm in the conviction that countries are like fruit – the worm is always inside. Corruption begins with that of principles.
It is counter-productive for governments not to fight corruption tooth and nail and to do so in the light of day.
It has been said that lilies that fester smell far worse than weeds. Corruption is like a snowball. Once set rolling, it gets bigger and bigger.
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