Funny how it took until now for a simple exercise to happen at the Malta Maritime Authority: matching the number of nautical licences issued to the actual number of people who sat for the examination and passed. The system, under which nobody is allowed to take even the smallest craft out to sea without a “driver’s licence”, has been in place for some years now. Those who want that licence have to go to evening classes and then sit for an examination and pass. There’s no way around this, even for those who have been out and about in boats for years. But of course, there was a way around it, for those who think they are too important or too busy to sit in class and take instruction: bribing an official to issue a licence against a forged examination certificate.

It’s pointless whining, as the Opposition Leader has taken to doing, that corruption is institutionalised – suggesting that it is the authorities who are solely to blame. Leaving aside the fact that corruption actually became institutionalised in those good old Labour government years when almost nothing could get done or be had without tenners or tens of thousands changing hands, it’s important to remember that it takes two parties to make corruption: the bribed and the briber.

People can’t be corrupted unless there are people around willing to corrupt them, and the problem here is not so much one of corrupt officials as of very many

corrupt members of the public. Perhaps it’s time we all remembered that it’s not just the public officers who take bribes who are committing a crime. Those who bribe public officers are committing a crime too. The information reaching the media from the Malta Maritime Authority suggests that there are as many as 500 people who have obtained false nautical licences through bribery. Those are a great many voters, and what are the odds that quite a few among them are even now sucking up to the Opposition Leader with complaints about rampant corruption? Well, they should know. They have contributed to it.

The very idea of paying to circumvent the correct channels of procedure is not just corrupt; it is antisocial. The “excellent names” that the chairman of the Malta Maritime Authority has mentioned might not be quite so excellent, after all. They might even be accustomed to the practice of using bribes to manipulate the system in their working life, and so have become inured to the implications. Others may be narcissistic personalities – in psychiatric terms, rather than in terms of vanity – who feel they need not be subjected to the rigours of technical training and examinations along with the ordinary mob.

Some months ago, while standing in a long queue at the cinema box office, I saw one such personality in action. A notorious man walked up, took one look at the queue and made impatient gestures. Then he walked up to the door attendant, and while I watched enthralled, tried to bribe him with a couple of tenners to let him and his companion in without tickets. The door attendant remained as impassive and polite as a guard on sentry duty. Our man tried another tack – bribing the doorman to let him jump the queue – and failed again.

Not one to give up, he then tried to bribe the doorman to go and get the tickets while he waited by the door. Throughout these unilateral negotiations, he repeatedly adjusted his reproductive equipment through his shorts. This man must have been bribing his way through life, except that he probably calls it tipping.

The chairman of the Malta Maritime Authority says that those who have obtained their licences abusively are being struck off the register, and will not be allowed to take their boats out. So will this mean 800 fewer boats clogging up the Blue Lagoon? I doubt it. The police seaborne patrol will be stopping boats to check whether there is a licensed person aboard, but the odds that they will be caught don’t seem that great, so I imagine many of them are going to take the risk of going out without a licence this summer – given that they can’t take the course and sit the examination in time for the high season. So how about some stiff penalties for those caught out at sea with a false licence or no licence at all?

So far, two Malta Maritime Authority officials have been suspended as the investigations go ahead. One of them was just a few months short of retirement age. It looks like there’s going to be no carriage clock or engraved silver salver for him. The amounts paid for a false licence appear to have ranged from Lm75 to Lm250, which is cheap at the price, even when multiplied by 500 and then divided by two.

There are some people who think that it’s quite a lot of money to have for free, but those who argue in this way don’t know much about the risk-reward principle. The higher the risk, the greater your reward should be – or to put it another way, the reward should be worth the risk involved. I’m talking about legitimate business here, but the same rules apply to illegitimate business, which is why the rewards of drug trafficking are so high.

The people taking these bribes must have figured that the risk of getting caught was negligible, but they failed to factor in something equally important: the consequences of getting caught. That’s what is meant by risk. In legitimate business, you lose your investment – but public officials caught taking bribes to undermine the

system lose a hell of a lot more than money.

That’s what is particularly tragic about all these bribery scandals we have been hearing about recently: how cheaply people can be bought. Or to put it another way, what a low price they put on their honour, dignity and integrity. It only takes one bribe to ruin your reputation and your career if you are found out, and some of these bribes are just a fiver here and there.

* * *

The nautical training course is held by MCAST, which also issues the examination certificates, and not by the Maritime Authority, which issues licences against those certificates. So the way the bribed and the bribers went about it was this. They allegedly forged MCAST certificates, and then issued licences against the false certificates.

It is not only the racketeers who are being prosecuted. The police also plan to press charges against those who paid bribes to get a licence against a forged certificate. This means hundreds more cases clogging up the works at the law courts, and all because there were no checks and balances at the Malta Maritime Authority’s licensing section.

What I find particularly galling is this: to make hundreds of “sales” of forged certificates, the racketeers must have had an efficient marketing system in place. It’s not possible to sell hundreds of anything by keeping your products and services secret. It stands to reason that for every client they netted, they lost many others. So why didn’t any of those who were approached for their possible interest in a forged certificate go straight to the police? Oh, make a wild guess. It’s because the system feeds on itself. People don’t want to file a report because they see it as sticking their necks out and as something extraordinary, instead of normal civic-minded behaviour. They also want to keep their options open. They might want to pay a bribe for something else in the future. The system works by compromising everyone.

Back at that cinema queue, I noticed that I was the only one openly staring at the man who was, equally openly, trying to bribe the doorman, and making disapproving noises. At least it served as a form of entertainment while I queued. Everyone else, when they noticed what was going on, took great care to avert their eyes and suddenly found the cinema posters very interesting. Not even the elderly matrons clucked their annoyance. It wouldn’t have been the same had our friend been flashing his privates rather than his wallet. Then the police would have been called.

[email protected]