What passes for normal in Malta

Daphne Caruana Galizia Sunday, 24 November 2013, 11:00 Last update: about 11 years ago

So one minister has declared half a million euros in cash kept at home (he trips up in noughts and thinks a billion is a hundred million, so he may have meant 50,000) and another minister declares a loan of more than €800,000 and an income of just over €2,000 a month with which he has got to service it, and neither of them will come clean about the details.

The Minister of the Interior, Manuel Mallia, told us at one point that he got the cash through selling property, but there are no records of him selling anything and in any case, transacting property for that amount of cash goes against money laundering laws, a point nobody saw fit to bring up with him at the time, not even in Parliament – which is odd.

And now the Minister for Gozo, Anton Refalo, has been asked some questions about his magnificent loan and how he services it, and he has refused to reply. What he said in his formal declaration of assets, he told Times of Malta, is “based on the truth”. Ah, but it’s not meant to be based on the truth. It’s meant to be the truth.

Refalo has no right to refuse to answer questions about that loan. On the contrary, he has the duty to answer them. And those who work for the press have both the right and the duty to hound him for information and for answers. Not just him, but Manuel Mallia too – for in which world does a Cabinet minister declare that he has half a million in cash at home and expect this to be treated as quite normal for anyone, let alone for somebody in his position?

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The government’s attempts to rehabilitate John Dalli are not just repulsive but also raise plenty of questions as to what the Prime Minister owes him. No government in its right mind would take on, as a consultant in a key field and amid much fanfare, a disgraced EU Commissioner who is still under investigation by the EU Commission, even if his expertise were unmatchable, which it is not.

It didn’t say much for the Labour Party’s ethical or moral standards when it used John Dalli – then still an EU Commissioner bringing his position into disrepute by appearing on the Labour Party’s television station to harangue the Prime Minister and the Maltese government – to undermine its political rivals. But to the perversely amoral ‘all is fair in love and war’ types among us, it made some sense because there was a political advantage to gain.

But what is the political advantage Joseph Muscat stands to gain from using Dalli now, in government? There is none. Because he is tainted and under investigation – though not, infamously, in Malta – and because he is dogged by rumour about the real nature of his lightning visit to the Bahamas, he is a liability and not an asset. All but the most obtuse Labour supporters must find the association awkward and it is unlikely to please or reassure them. It is difficult, if not impossible, to explain or justify the link when faced with criticism.

I do not think that the Prime Minister’s feelings of indebtedness towards Dalli for his relentless undermining and public disparagement of the Nationalist Party and its then leader are sufficient explanation, either. Muscat has got what he wanted and needed. He need not repay any debt at this stage. Dishonourable debts may be dishonoured– unless, of course, one is afraid of the consequences. So the obvious question then arises: that the Prime Minister must be keeping Dalli happy because he is worried about the consequences of not doing so.

So, because of that, Malta now has a plan for its health care services and its general hospital prepared and promoted by a man who was forced to resign from his post as EU Commissioner, who was investigated by the EU Commission, and who has had fresh investigations opened into his extra-curricular activities, including his Bahamas trip, though Malta only learned of this through a newspaper published in the United States. And that is to leave aside the fact that the police commissioner who planned to prosecute him was replaced by a police commissioner who thought it was best not to do so. And we treat all of this as though it is normal behaviour and that we are helpless in the face of it.