The subject of the day is going to be the Nationalist Party leadership election, but voting will not be closed by the time my column deadline closes, let alone the counting. So there’s not much I can say, except that I believe the only two real contenders are Simon Busuttil and Mario de Marco. May the best man win – at least we can be sure that the one who doesn’t win will not spend the next few years embroiled in spiteful bitchiness, undermining his erstwhile rival. Neither of the two has that kind of personality, but John Dalli has been a most unattractive example of the destructiveness of envy and resentment – and not just self-destruction, either.

***

The Prime Minister has said that all cars used by the previous government have been assigned to the new Cabinet members. But as there were not enough cars to go around – after all, Franco the Law Commissioner and Chief of Constitutional Reform had to be given one, plus a driver – his office has leased some for the rest. They now have permission to buy them outright or carry on leasing them, whichever they prefer. He left out the most important bit, and nobody has asked, not even in a parliamentary question: Who from?

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The subject of cars has been big this week. The Prime Minister’s advisers have attempted to counteract the strong reaction to his being paid to use his own car by releasing a list of the cost of repairs to his predecessor’s official BMW limo. We were supposed to react with shock and horror.

The bit they left out is something that most people don’t know. No state-owned vehicles are insured; they have special exemption under the law. This includes the (former) Prime Minister’s official limo. So the sort of repairs for which we would claim under comprehensive insurance have to be paid for directly by the government.

There is another, more obvious, reason why the Prime Minister and his advisers chose to avoid mentioning this. It raises questions about who will be paying for the repairs to his personal Alfa, which he has leased to himself in his role as Prime Minister. As the lessor, he is the one obliged to pay for them. But as the lessee, I somehow think he will have made arrangements for the state to carry the bills – and if challenged about it, he will use his stock response of “but that’s what my predecessor did.”

Except, of course, that his predecessor wasn’t using his own car and getting paid for it.

***

Transport Minister Joe Mizzi isn’t only busy on his decades-long hunt for oil. He’s also busy looking for cars which he believes have been hidden from him, but he won’t say which ones or how many. He said of his minions: “They are looking for the cars and, depending on the results, we’ll see what has to be done. It’s unacceptable that when someone new comes into office, they have to look for things. In a civilised country, there’s usually a handover.”

In a civilised country, the incoming government doesn’t demand the resignations of all permanent secretaries, who are the repositories of such information and the pivots for any such handover (that is why they are called ‘permanent secretaries’). And in a civilised country, the incoming government doesn’t persecute the only two permanent secretaries who, in line with their constitutional rights and obligations, ignored the demand for their resignation. The main reason all the other permanent secretaries caved in immediately, despite the request for their resignation being 100 per cent abusive, is that they feared that what is now happening to the two who did not would happen to them. And they didn’t have the stomach for it. I can’t say I blame them. Labour has long been known for its ‘commit suicide or I’ll kill you’ approach to dealing with those who stand in its way.

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The House Committee for Economic and Financial Affairs has been subjected to yet another instance of Caligula making his horse, Incitatus, a senator in order to mock and undermine the standing of the Senate. New Labour MP Silvio Schembri, aged 27, has been appointed to chair it.

The governor of the Central Bank will now have to report on progress to the equivalent of the office junior, who built his electoral campaign on safeguarding the interests of bird-shooters and trappers.

The House Committee for Economic and Financial Affairs is supposed to scrutinise Malta’s economic situation and examine reports on the subject that are published by European and Maltese institutions. So Silvio Schembri, a 27-year-old hunters’ hero, is well qualified then.

 

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