Last Monday's four-hour Budget Speech has been completely wiped off people's minds. It is nowhere near the national radar, completely forgotten.

If anyone needs proof, just browse through today's comment pages on all papers.

Instead, I bet, all one will find is words and more words on Minister Manwel Mallia and his driver.

This small accident, which should not have merited more than a police caution, has now become a cause celebre. It should have never happened and now there's hell to pay.

A man, a foreigner to boot, had to spend a day and a night (probably more) in the Police HQ lockup on unspecified charges, while the man who shot three times at a fleeing car would, had it been me or you, have been charged with attempted murder by now, refused bail and locked up.

The lesson drilled in by so many episodes in the recent or remote past is: don't tamper with our boys in blue.

At street level, this has now broadened into don't tamper with a Maltese. Full stop. Don't get involved in an accident with a Maltese, don't dare tamper with a Paceville heavy, and above all, don't get entangled with a member of the ruling party.

Many foreigners say, with some truth, there are two parallel systems of justice in Malta - one for the Maltese and one for the foreigners.

My last close encounter with Manwel Mallia was last Monday. I was walking towards the Finance Ministry and the Budget presentation when a ministerial car turned into South Street, stopped in front of Pizza Hut and the minister waddled in. Gosh, I passed next to the car without knowing what danger I was in.

Minister Mallia cut his teeth at Guido de Marco's feet. In 1987, when PN overcame 16 years of Socialist rule and brainwashing, some well-known property developers et al that had been criticised by PN in Opposition, flocked around de Marco who must have defended some of them in court.

But de Marco was no Manwel Mallia. He never went to prison to announce an amnesty and was hugged and thumped on his back by his former clients. And even so, if I remember correctly, de Marco spent very little time at the justice ministry before being moved on.

But then Manwel Mallia was important, nay, essential for PL's huge victory in a way de Marco never was. But then Joseph Muscat is no Eddie Fenech Adami much as he unconsciously imitates him even in his choice of words.

Nor did de Marco grab the broadcasting sector along with the rest of his ministry; neither did he appoint a key person from that sector as his ADC.

In short, de Marco was never allowed the kind of long leash Manwel Mallia has been given by Joseph Muscat in his first term as a young Prime Minister. Now, from some words let slip over the past days, Dr Muscat seems to be trying to put some space between them. Too late, I say, it's too late to correct the situation.

This week we also had the former Commissioner of Police, John Rizzo, testifying to the Public Accounts Committee (PAC). John Rizzo is a giant of a man, physically superior to most people, even when seated as at PAC. Under PN, and with John Rizzo at the helm, we never had the shenanigans we have had now. I still say that Mr Rizzo was a poor substitute for a real reform of the corps.

Mr Rizzo told PAC how badly he had been treated, that he was forced out of his office within minutes, with no sort of handover at all, and how he cannot get access to his papers to answer the PAC's questions.

His hand-picked successor as Commissioner is gone now. Instead, there is an Acting Police Commissioner and reportedly a three-cornered battle for succession.

Mr Rizzo also explained that the top echelons of the police have been dispersed to the four corners of Malta, with separate roles, all removed from normal police work.

If you think this was bad, that's nothing compared to the mayhem in the army. Again, I do not remember any PN government putting the army and the police under the same minister, except under the Prime Minister. The top echelons of the army have also been forced out, some are abroad, and some working at the immigrants' closed centres. Some have left.

The line ministers get on with their work but Manwel Mallia positively relishes the huge ministerial burden he has been given. And he deals with the crises that come his way in his own manner, which is confrontational and refuses to budge. He (and his staff) is continually trying to find something in the past PN to justify his actions, even if, as in the case of the amnesty, he had to go back two or three legislatures to find anything comparable.

In Parliament, also due to Jason Azzopardi dementedly flooding Parliament with PQs (and also due to Parliament's skewed rules which allow this to happen) we have, day in, day out, verbal fireworks between Dr Azzopardi and the minister. It's repetitive, tedious, boring and both lawyers revert to courtroom barracking with no resolution in sight.

All those stories and speculation about a possible Cabinet reshuffle are off the mark. There will be no reshuffle and Minister Mallia may rest assured he is destined to continue with his small kingdom. The situation is now too far gone for Dr Muscat to redress.

The best Dr Muscat can say is he is following the unhappy footsteps of his predecessors who too chose unwisely and lived to regret it - John Dalli, JPO, Franco Debono, etc. One would have thought those who came after Lawrence Gonzi and Eddie Fenech Adami would have learnt their lesson. One would have thought that with such a huge majority, Dr Muscat would have been strong enough to choose wisely. Instead, in this and in other areas, he has (is) proved himself weak and unable to rein in those who are demonstrably harming his administration. Manwel Mallia is a hard bone to dislodge.

I also fail to see what the Muscat administration is getting out of all this. OK, maybe some police officers who had left in PN times came back from retirement. There has been a huge glut of appointments at top levels in the corps.

I remember that in the Ta' Qali counting hall in the 2003 referendum, when Alfred Sant, accompanied by just two persons, walked in, he was immediately surrounded by the press. Suddenly, a huge crowd of supporters and policemen materialised out of nowhere to defend him and in their eagerness to protect him, the police were none too gentle. Hoping the No camp (and thus Labour) was winning, they sought to gain brownie points.

From this distance, I have no doubt this is what happened at Gzira. Someone hit the minister's car, ergo this was a threat, and ergo the culprit must be caught and punished.

If I were to be asked by this inquiry of sorts (which I will not), I would reply I have no doubt the minister did not order them to shoot to kill, but the minister is indeed responsible for letting the corps deteriorate into this 'shoot first, ask later' charade. Building a Police Academy is no substitute for drilling procedures and rules into the heads of all police. Nor is doling out promotions and awards any substitute for enforcing discipline.

Every minister is a political animal, which is one other reason why professional and impartial management must be allowed to rule, rather than partisan ruling by coterie. One would have thought we have understood that: instead, it seems we haven't.

 

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