They have been a very difficult and trying two weeks for the Prime Minister. The inauguration of the Mater Dei hospital could not have been held at a worse moment in time for the fortunes of the Nationalist Party.
The thrill of the celebrations, which were timed to coincide with the Prime Minister’s birthday and the re-opening of the St Paul’s Bay bypass, was initially marred by a spate of redundancies at two major textile factories which have shown the way out to no fewer than 800 employees, the majority of whom will soon fall onto the laps of the social security department.
These redundancies, particularly the ones at the VF industrial plant, stank of political opportunism as they were the very same employees who, on the eve of the last general election, were handed a personalised letter from the former Prime Minister’s pen guaranteeing their continued employment under another Nationalist administration. These were truly dismal news to the Nationalist Party propaganda machine and for the government’s own political credibility and trust.
The VF-Bortex saga had not yet come to an end before the news broke that another network of corruption, this time at the Malta Maritime Authority, had been unearthed. The revelations were first made in Parliament by Labour MP Joe Mizzi, a thorn in Dr Gonzi’s claim for good governance and a Freddie Kruger for many Nationalist ministers at question time in the House of Representatives. The matter gained momentum when the press delved deeper into the matter and it was only after the revelations were made that action was taken – although there are claims that the authorities were already in the know before Joe Mizzi made his first revelations.
No less than 800 people have since been investigated by the police and soon after a high official at the authority was arraigned in Court accused of accepting bribes. It is unthinkable how such a massive network of corruption could have escaped the attention of the authorities. In spite of the government’s denial, its credibility has been seriously undermined and the general perception is that this administration is inundated with cases of sleaze and corruption.
Also there is a founded suspicion that the mechanism to reveal and fight sleaze has now corroded and that the government is more concerned about trying to keep wraps on matters that can cause damage to its political stature, now that an election is looming, than to face the rot and curb abuses. Why are the authorities reacting only when new cases of sleaze make the headlines? People are now thinking that this administration is more noticeable for what it says than for what it does and that it cannot be trusted where clean public administration is concerned.
To continue dampening the government’s fortunes, a member of a minister’s private secretariat ended up in Court accused of accepting bribes in exchange for an invalidity pension. The office of the private secretariat is a political office that exists for as long as the incumbent minister stays on. It is the highest expression of political allegiance as the members of the staff are directly appointed by the minister concerned. This case continued to embarrass the government in a very serious way.
And another minister’s direct intervention in the workings of the ADT, overruling the CEO’s and the chairman’s express wishes over the dismissal of two inspectors who were found guilty of corruption, did little to help the government’s image of transparency and accountability. The government seems to be under siege on various fronts at a moment when it is racing against time to try to recover lost terrain in the electoral battleground.
It is clearly evident that Lawrence Gonzi has had his attention hijacked for too long by the antics of some of his ministers. All these woes help little to keep the Prime Minister concentrating on his main duties – that of governing this country. And as he tirelessly defends his ministers’ actions, he looks progressively less assertive and less authoritative.
Dr Gulia is the opposition’s main spokesman on home affairs