The parliamentary secretary Ian Borg has issued what sounds like a triumphant statement in the wake of the findings by the Permanent Commission Against Corruption that “there is an insufficient level of evidence to the degree required by criminal law to prove corruption".
He appears to believe that he is vindicated, but he is not. The Permanent Commission Against Corruption is talking here about the law: is there sufficient basis on which to build a case for Borg’s prosecution for corruption? No, there is not. But unless you are of the frame of mind in which everything is acceptable unless it is actually illegal – an opinion which the prime minister’s consultant on planning reform, Robert Musumeci, voiced recently then you will see the flaw in this argument. What Borg did is not definable as corruption under the Criminal Code of this country, but it remains wrong whoever you are and when you are a member of the cabinet of government, it is totally unacceptable. The Ombudsman described Borg’s methods in applying for and obtaining a permit for his building as “strange and devious”. He used another person’s name to conceal the fact that this is his development. Two years ago, the Ombudsman said, the person who owned the land before Borg had applied for a permit to build on it but was refused permission. Borg bought the land, the development policies conveniently were changed, and he applied for a permit (under another person’s name) and got it.
What this means is that Ian Borg has to go. Joe Cassar, who was a member of the Opposition and not of the government, did not simply resign from his position as an Opposition spokesman when the news broke that he had received gifts from the controversial operator Joe Gaffarena, years ago when he was a cabinet minister. He actually resigned from parliament and cleared the way for somebody else to take his seat. For a cabinet minister to receive gifts from business operators is not a criminal offence in Malta. It becomes a criminal offence – corruption, trading in influence, bribery – when the gifts are given in consideration for favours extended. Yet despite it not being illegal, it was completely unacceptable and Cassar understood that he would have to step down. The Opposition leader also made it clear that he would not tolerate the situation. Rather than hanging in there and defying his party leader, as some individuals we need not mention did with Simon Busuttil’s predecessor, Lawrence Gonzi, and as Giovanna Debono has done with Busuttil, Cassar did the decent thing and left parliament altogether, rather than resigning the party whip and keeping his seat.
Ian Borg, however, is going to stay on. The triumphalism of his statement when the Permanent Commission Against Corruption released its report makes that clear. Nor does he seem to be under any sort of pressure from Muscat the prime minister to resign his position as parliamentary secretary, still less from Muscat the party leader to resign the party whip or his seat in parliament.
And the odd thing is – maybe not so odd – that people expect him to stay on, just as they expected Joe Cassar to step down and leave parliament. We all know that the electorate holds the Nationalist Party to far higher standards than it does the Labour Party, that its tolerance threshold for Labour wrong-doing is much, much higher than it is for Nationalist wrong-doing. But these two cases, coming so soon after each other, throw those contrasting attitudes into stark relief. We demand that a member of the Opposition leaves parliament because of gifts he took from a highly controversial fixer some years ago. But we do not demand that a current member of the government steps down – not even from his position in the cabinet – when he is found to have manipulated the planning system to obtain a permit to build when the previous owners of the land had their application refused only a short while ago.
The interesting thing is that we expect bad behaviour from the Labour Party/government, and because we expect it, then we tolerate it. Ian Borg sneaked his permit through when the previous owners had their application refused? Come on, at least he isn’t beating people up or sending out his thugs to collect protection money. That’s the way we see it. Well, I don’t – but it looks as though many do.