Once again, the Maltese electorate has been a helpless spectator, stupefied by a bewildering spectacle involving surreptitious negotiations by the government to sell the people’s assets – in this case Sea Malta, which is, by common agreement, of strategic interest to the country.

The government entered into negotiations with one Italian shipping line, having said that Sea Malta was bankrupt, and signed a memorandum of understanding for the sale of its shareholding in the company. The terms of the deal were not disclosed. There was no information as to whether Sea Malta’s subsidiaries were also being disposed of. The seamen and their union have no inkling of their fate.

Call for inquiry

When the Leader of the Opposition, Dr Alfred Sant, called for an inquiry, the Minister for Investment, Industry and Information Technology, Dr Austin Gatt, questioned his intentions. He claimed that Dr Sant “thinks his job as Opposition Leader is to sabotage the nation’s effort to nurture the growth of its own prosperity” (The Times, 16 June).

The deal provoked the resignation of the chairman of Sea Malta, Marlene Mizzi, who did not mince her words in a hard-hitting letter of resignation addressed to the Prime Minister. She lamented that “the government has effectively abdicated its responsibilities to the company for all these years” and that its decision to dispose of the country’s only shipping line “was foolish and short-sighted”.

Marlene Mizzi had the courage of her convictions. The Prime Minister held his ground. He focused on his mathematics rather than on the way this issue has been handled

Public Accounts Committee

When Alfred Sant insisted on “a thorough, independent investigation”, Dr Austin Gatt challenged the Opposition to take the matter up in the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) of the House. If the Opposition Leader did not do so, Dr Gatt undertook to do so himself.

The PAC is composed of politicians from both sides of the House. The chairman comes from the Opposition, but the majority of its members come from the government side.

The PAC has the potential of digging up relevant information to which the public would gain access. Its operation is transparent but polarised. Its members look at the Maltese landscape through the prism of their party interests. Their role is to scrutinise and not to judge.

Why is there an ingrained, almost endemic resistance to public calls for independent judicial inquiries, when malodorous incidents cry to high heaven for accountability?

There have been many past episodes, relating to possible corruption, where calls for a public inquiry were ignored.

Non-partisan issue

The time to put our house in order in this regard is long overdue. This is a non-partisan issue that deserves a place at the top of the agenda of Maltese politics.

Before this vital issue is satisfactorily resolved, Maltese democracy will remain hostage to unscrupulous politicians who rule the roost.

The Maltese taxpaying electorate is entitled to complete, truthful information and the truth should not depend on whom it is to serve. We need institutional arrangements providing for independent investigation, if accountability is to be really meaningful.

It is the lack of such arrangements that has inhibited good

governance and restrained development and growth.

Arbitrary power

Without such provisions, it has been possible for politicians to exercise arbitrary power and to transform patronage into an instrument of capricious clientelism and political partisanship.

All of this gives substance and meaning to the time-honoured Maltese saying that “the fish begins to stink at the head”.

There are honest and honourable politicians, on each side of the political divide, who aspire to clean government and who hunger and thirst for reform. Political polarisation keeps them apart and neutralises their potential.

The urge and the will to break away from the status quo must come from an enlightened electorate

It is for the electorate to choose whether it will govern itself or be governed.

After all, government is a trust and ministers and public officers are trustees – and both the trust and the trustees are there to serve the people.

The time is overdue to make accountability a reality. It is not enough to make a bid for transparency in the running of public affairs. Democracy needs the support of institutional arrangements that provide for independent investigation where the public interest so demands, and that the findings are followed up without fear or favour – and without time bar or prescription.

Upright politicians with clean hands ought to be protagonists in support of such arrangements. If they have nothing to embarrass them and nothing to hide, they ought to welcome any independent investigation that enhances their reputation.

The fact that there is such ferocious and intransigent resistance to independent investigation is far more eloquent than anything I can say.

Heraclitus said, way back in 500 BC, “Eyes are more accurate witnesses than ears.” The Maltese electorate seems to have taken a long time to be convinced!

It’s time for all of us to grow up and put our house in order.

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