During the past several months, the media carried frequent reports relating to allegations of corrupt practices in some government departments and public entities. Court proceedings were instituted in a number of cases, some of which seem to have been of an ongoing nature, over long stretches of time.

Officials who were caught with their fingers in the till were charged and put on trial. There is no indication that the responsible superior officers, under whose noses scores of citizens have been fleeced, were investigated. Much less have they been held accountable for their defaults.

The Maltese public sector is afflicted by another endemic scourge. There is no businesslike control on public expenditure relating to major public projects. Budget overruns are becoming more frequent – and the most notorious examples involve over-spending in the order of millions of liri— the Mater Dei hospital project and the Cirkewwa ferry-boat terminal immediately come to mind.

Public calls for ministerial accountability have fallen on deaf ears.

Watchdog role

Democracy needs accountability. And it needs transparency, with Parliament playing the role of watchdog.

One would assume that parliament and its committees is the proper place to filter and purify the political air when charges, or outright allegations of corruption and maladministration, are made. But it has often happened that various attempts to institutionalise a culture of transparency and accountability have been stonewalled.

Every so often, the Maltese political firmament is illuminated by lightning anticipating thunderstorms, arising from allegations of abuse of power, corruption, even criminality. Ever since the 1970s, charges of this nature have become a leitmotif.

As if by routine, these allegations come from opposition quarters. Some begin to make the rounds sotto voce, until they come to gain circulation at a high pitch, and to be sustained by outraged vehemence.

Way back in 1987, a Nationalist administration was elected to office with the promise of eradicating corruption “root and branch”. That was a time when it was claimed that corruption in the public sector was “institutionalised”.

A “Commission Against Corruption” was set up. A long-winded inquiry into irregularities in the affairs of Mid-Med Bank – conducted behind closed doors – practically drew a blank.

Hardly a mouse emerged from the mountain, due exception being made of a handful of isolated cases of corruption, and others where human rights infringements led to successful prosecutions. The rest was lost in the wash or allowed to evaporate into thin air by the laws of prescription.

Ever since, there have been very many allegations fouling the air in successive scandal-mongering seasons. There have been demands for a whistle-blower law, for independent inquiries and for Parliamentary investigations. Every outcry was smothered in slow stages.

Democracy is served by allowing protests to take their course, after which the fuss peters out and the issue is swept under the carpet or discarded in the proverbial bir tas-skieken (bottomless pit) in a typical Maltese way.

Tarnished face of democracy

This is not to say that other countries are immune to situations of this kind. In the Mother of Parliaments at Westminster, various issues of parliamentary impropriety and sleaze have been raised and caught the attention of the media,

In Germany, Helmut Kohl’s brilliant career was abruptly interrupted when it was discovered that he had been playing surreptitiously with secret political funds.

In Italy the Christian Democratic Party was laid to waste and Bettino Craxi found the Tunisian climate better for his health than the one in Milan.

What is distinctly peculiar to Malta is that neither the investigative powers of parliament, nor the majesty of the independent courts are invoked to get to the bottom of circumstances that breed suspicion of corruption and criminal malpractice And we have no carabinieri, with powers to take autonomous initiatives under the authority of independent magistrates.

As a result, Malta has acclimatised itself to an environment which is inclined to believe that there is fire wherever there is smoke. The face of democracy is often tarnished as a result.

This happens each time knaves simulate smoke and instantly proceed to accuse unsuspected victims of arson. This is a common method of character assassination. Seasoned criminals go one better by creating a huge smokescreen to fox and delay the fire fighters. And, while the fires rage, they get away with the ill-gotten gains.

Democracy needs a clean environment. It needs the machinery to keep the environment clean

Those responsible for the proper maintenance of this machinery must, at all times, be accountable to the people.