The Malta Labour Party was correct to ask several questions as to why the government took so long to order the Police Commissioner to investigate claims of irregularities and corruption in connection with the Mater Dei Hospital.

In a statement last week, the MLP asked why Dr Lawrence Gonzi waited two weeks before requesting Police Commissioner John Rizzo to investigate the claims made by former Nationalist MP Frank Portelli.

It wondered why the government initially played down what had been said by Dr Portelli, and only reacted when, some days later, Opposition Leader Alfred Sant took the cue and called for an investigation himself. The MLP also said that Dr Gonzi’s call for an investigation confirmed the seriousness of the accusations, hinting that such an investigation would not have been called for had the MLP not referred to Dr Portelli’s comments.

The MLP raised other issues in this regard. In the days following Dr Portelli’s public statement, Dr Gonzi had maintained that it was Dr Portelli himself who should have gone to the police, while Parliamentary Secretary Tonio Fenech said that the police could not investigate what Dr Portelli said because “he had said nothing”.

So far, the government has yet to come up with a reaction to what the MLP has publicly requested. And now that a few days have passed, it is unlikely that it will give an answer, or explain why it waited so long. Now, of course, the matter is in the hands of the police.

Analysing the matter from a political perspective, declarations such as those made by Dr Portelli, especially if they are proven correct, will deal a serious blow to the government, more so considering that now we are moving closer to a general election.

The government might have initially decided not to give any importance to such declarations, thinking that they would perhaps fall by the wayside and be quickly forgotten.

This was a mistake. The controversies that have surrounded the construction of the Mater Dei Hospital right from the very start – and in particular over the costs involved – should have immediately put the government on alert when Dr Portelli said what he did.

It was to be expected that the MLP would follow matters up. After all, the public does have a right to know if irregularities were committed with taxpayers’ money.

The government should have immediately taken the initiative to request the intervention of the police – within a few hours, as the MLP suggested – and not wait a couple of weeks before writing to Commissioner Rizzo to ask him to investigate.

The delay can be interpreted as meaning that the government was quite unsure how the matter should be dealt with in the first place. It must have thought that the accusations that had been made would not have much of an impact, and therefore took its time before realising that the claims needed to be investigated to sort matters out.

Worse still, neither the Prime Minister nor Parliamentary Secretary Fenech should have dismissed the matter so lightly when asked to comment about the allegations that had been made.

In particular, Mr Fenech’s statement that there was nothing to investigate has now been solidly contradicted in as much as the Prime Minister himself has ordered the police to look into the matter. If the PM has ordered an investigation, then he must feel that there is something to investigate.

As such, irrespective of the outcome of the police investigation, Labour has scored political points on this one, considering that ultimately the government had to take heed of what the Opposition Leader was saying.