So far, there does not seem to have been any flood of protests, not even from his own party, on the way Lawrence Gonzi was treated in his Public Accounts Committee appearance on Friday.

As far as I can remember, this was the very first appearance by a former head of government in front of a parliamentary committee in Malta. True, Tony Blair appeared before a House of Commons committee some months ago but that was the exception to the rule, justifiable in his case because of the involvement of British troops in Iraq and the whole Weapons of Mass Destruction justification of the Iraq war.

We do not call former prime ministers 'Emeritus' though we do that for former presidents and archbishops. Maybe, deep down we feel that past prime ministers are not merit-worthy. So why not haul them in front of a parliamentary committee while there's still the chance?

The Public Accounts Committee has a member of the Opposition as its head but the majority of its members come from the government side. It is also a creation of the former PN administrations and is modelled on the House of Commons template in the search for probity in the administration of public finances. Even so, to my knowledge, the HoC PAC never suborned a former premier.

As I followed Friday's hearing, I could see that the number of people who were following it was very low, less than 500. That may account for the muted public reaction.

There are now two PACs, one specifically devoted to the fuel procurement scandal. The hearings have been going on for months, if not years, and after grilling of past and present Enemalta officials and managers, the time has now come to grill politicians. And Lawrence Gonzi was the first to be questioned.

Pleasures yet to come: Austin Gatt and Tonio Fenech.

The members of the National Audit Office are present every time, although their report has long been analysed and discussed. They cannot contribute much when it comes to the political masters.

This is where the politicians on both sides take over, and on Friday there were three lawyers on the government side and two on the Opposition side, employing their courtroom tactics and procedures.

For, as was made amply clear on Friday, the procedure is very much structured on the court template and Dr Gonzi was a 'witness', treated as a witness is treated in court.

Only, this was no court, and Dr Gonzi was not the accused. This turned out to be a mammoth fishing expedition by the three government ministers-lawyers who were overly interested in delving into whether they could detect a whiff of familiarity between Dr Gonzi and Cathy Farrugia, the wife of George Farrugia, the man who has benefited from a presidential pardon and whose testimony, it would seem, can incriminate his own family and possibly past or present Enemalta officials more than politicians. And all this was based because Mrs Farrugia, who was in a chatty mood, spoke about her children being on holiday in an email to the head of government. And because in his reply he addressed her as 'Dear Cathy'.

Now the emails that have surfaced show Cathy Farrugia asking Dr Gonzi for a meeting with her husband and Dr Gonzi replying, when he was told what the meeting would be about, that he refused to have anything to do with a bidder.

But this was not what the government side was after. Do they sense a familiarity between Dr Gonzi and Cathy Farrugia; the questions went on and on.

When an exasperated Dr Gonzi (who seems to have forgotten how vicious politics can be) reminded them he did not meet a bidder for a government contract as current Minister Joe Mizzi did when he went to Spain to meet Autobuses de Leon, all hell broke loose.

Away from office, Dr Gonzi has mellowed and lost his keen sense. He admitted that when he had said, at the previous PAC meeting, that he did not recall communicating with Ms Farrugia, he had been speaking without notes and had his memory jolted by the revelation of the email exchange, even though the exchange itself showed him refusing to meet Mr Farrugia on the tender issue.

He still retained something from his premiership years in that he felt aggrieved and felt justified in interrupting the questions he was being asked.

Deep down, however, this was not just a fishing expedition, it was a gogna mediatica; a relentless honing in on the next newspaper or website headline, a blaming exercise by association. In other words, pure partisan spin.

What seems to have gone on at Enemalta regarding fuel procurement was ugly, pure corruption and, on Enemalta's part, lax controls and lack of proper procedures.

There are ongoing court procedures and we may be in for interesting developments if the rest of the Farrugia family are arraigned and if George Farrugia, as Prime Minister Muscat threatened last Sunday, loses his presidential pardon.

The holders of political office have much to answer for: how were the key persons appointed, whether any checks or balances were inserted into the procedures, whether any real investigation was set in motion when allegations were made? Since former ministers have yet to appear before PAC, I still hope these are the questions that will be asked. But to spend the whole evening fishing around for evidence of 'familiarity' between Dr Gonzi and Mrs Farrugia was sick when so much more substantial questions could have been asked.

However, the trial also served to highlight the bad time-management Dr Gonzi had in office. To say that between 2006 and 2013, he had received over 96,000 emails and had personally replied to over 46,000 of them shows his determination to reply personally to every email he received and also very bad time-management from the head of the executive. Maybe this is what he used to do at Mizzi's and at MSP, but it must have rendered the country's top level slow down to an almighty bottleneck.

Lost in such minutiae, time was wasted and although Dr Gonzi said he drew his ministers' attention to the allegations being made, no serious effort seems to have been made to go to the heart of the matter. And so things remained as they had always been. Or almost.

At the same time, for all that I have been writing so far, this was at long last a welcome development to bring to account the holders of political office in the past administration.

The public judgment has already been passed - 37,000 votes shifted the government of the country to Labour and Joseph Muscat. But those who were responsible for this almighty defeat have not yet answered the questions that were made. It is about time they come to the bar and answer questions.

The removal by Simon Busuttil of most of the former Cabinet from being Opposition front benchers does not exonerate the former holders of political office from facing up to their time in office and answering questions the country asks. As long, however, as this is done in fairness and not for partisan spin.

I hope, however, hoping against hope, that the questions will be more focused, less of a fishing expedition, less aiming at the next day's headlines and more seeking to find out the truth.

Whatever else one says about the current government's plans for energy, it is now all too clear that the Enemalta stables needed a thorough cleanup.

 

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