No, this is not a misprint. It is just my way of paying homage to George Orwell revisited – had he chosen to re-enact his 1948 masterpiece which had been published under the title of 1984. For which read 2080 instead of 2008! I made this clarification for another purpose, because some readers might have easily thought that I would be writing about certain GHG (greenhouse gasses emissions) targets for the future!
Had Orwell been alive and followed the Paul Borg Olivier saga he would have either died laughing or else suffered a heart attack because of the clumsy and incompetent manner in which Orwellian arguments were used by GonziPN to defend a defenseless case.
The best thing PBO would have done under present circumstances would have been to either own up, keep his mouth shut or else to step down and resign.
Even some of your staunchest Nationalist correspondents dismissed him as green (neither in the vicious or environmental sense since to be fair in private PBO is a likeable person) but purely in terms of political incompetence. A leading English language daily equally attributed this to his “inexperience as secretary general even though he happens to be a lawyer by profession and so (according to them) should have known better.”
A pro-Nationalist blogger was fuming so much with embarrassment that he even mentioned the wrong Jason once again. Here goes:
“If Borg Olivier sent that e-mail by mistake to Jason Azzopardi – he should resign from PN’s secretary due to neglect. The guy is not fit to be a secretary of our party.”
Whether PBO is fit to be the PN general secretary is solely their problem and theirs to solve. But what amazes me is the cheek of many Nationalist bloggers and columnists who seem far more embarrassed that PBO allegedly got caught red handed, rather than being ‘guilty’ in the light of the accusations leveled against him.
Borg Olivier had every right to defend himself on the data sharing email, but in doing so he contradicted himself and others in more ways than one:
a) If the party was not interested in personal information reaching ministries to be passed on to the party what was the whole scope of getting public officers paid from public funds to attend a strategy meeting at the PN HQ – chaired by PBO himself - for which not only were key PN officials present, but also people who according to the PBO email have been involved in this electoral process prior to the last general elections. Such people including the MIMCOL Chairperson, the Kordin Grain Terminal Chairman, and the PN Siggiewi deputy mayor and member of the PN’s National Executive?
b) What did PBO really mean when he spoke of better management of complaints, of being more effective in ‘our work’ with all those who approach the party and the ministers/parliamentary secretariats as well as when he spoke of “a strong audit trail in the process and a maximisation of resources”.
c) PBO is also reported to have written that “this data should include personal data on the requests that were made to the customer care of the ministry/parliamentary secretariat in the past eight months, the kind of request, action taken and results (pending).’ This shows that the PN were not solely interested in numbers of complaints but possibly specifics too!
d) What was the whole point of involving the customer care officials of the PN too, if no confidential government info. Was to be cascaded to the party itself?
In an editorial called “The PN’S red face” The Sunday Times did not mince words when it claimed that PBO’s email was sent to ask government ministers to forward personal details of people making complaints.
No wonder an independent columnist called these the most damning parts of the PBO e-mail.
The richest part of PBO’s email was when he spoke of “identifying pockets of weakness”.
Where I disagree is with those who heaped praise on the PM’s head of secretariat for stopping any information from being given out. (See Times editorial 4.12.08).
In my opinion Mr Galea Curmi’s reply could be also interpreted as a belated damage limitation exercise the moment he realised that the wrong Jason had been at the receiving end of the PBO email.
PBO told us that it had been decided that the relative email was meant to be aired during Friday’s Xarabank. Even if this was the case – and I have my doubts if it would have been aired in its entirety had Joseph Muscat not spilled the beans 24 hours earlier – I fail to understand why none of the local newspapers except l-orizzont bothered to reproduce the relative e-mail. PBO has so far failed to air or reproduce his own email in his own party media.
Regardless of what PBO’s real intentions were, the Prime Minister’s back seat in all this remains at once baffling and inexcusable.
Many other questions remain unanswered:
a) was the mentioned Justice Ministry official in the loop or not – whose role has nothing to do with Customer Care but is instead related to far more sensitive subjects, such as the alleged presidential pardons?
b) The ‘new’ claim by PBO that even this official had been wrongly addressed is somewhat hard to believe. Did he attend the meeting with the rest, at PN HQ or not?
c) Can PBO explain the mix of such people from different quarters at the PN HQ – the heads of customer care of government ministries, two officials from the PM’s secretariat, and three PN collaborators who have evidently long been involved in the electoral process (sic) although their specific role remains somewhat undefined even though easy to ascertain.
d) Who authorised the PM secretariat staffers to attend such a meeting during office hours?
e) Was Edgar Galea Curmi aware of such a meeting or not? I am posing the question because Paul Borg Olivier was heard admitting on tape during his hurriedly put together defensive press conference that the PM as party leader would have known of such things since the party leader is always aware of what is happening in his party.
f) I am posing the question to EGC because after all he is the Head of Secretariat of the PM.
g) If on the other hand these people left without even having had the decency to seek his authorisation, this needs some explaining too.
h) If GonziPN wanted more synergy between the OPM and the ministries I would have thought that the meeting should have been convened by the PPS at the OPM Mr. Godwin Grima and not by PBO.
PBO on Xarabank was a disaster waiting to happen. Thanks to the thankless task he had of defending a defenseless case. As well as thanks to the devastating form Jason Micallef was in when he swept the carpet from under his feet from the word GO.
PBO’s alleged ’saving grace’ was that there was no flow of information to party HQ. When he talked repeatedly of ‘data sharing’ it becomes much harder to believe.
If such information was actually shared, then the following remarks by Joseph Muscat gain in added gravitas:
“Dr Muscat explained how this espionage network is affecting directly that family whose daughter happens to be experiencing problems and whose personal details have now ended up at the Dar Centrali after her case was referred to a particular ministry. It also hits that head of a family who might be experiencing health problems and who after seeking help from the ministry concerned saw his details ending up at Tal-Pieta’... It also covers that person who might be a small business person, and who might be currently experiencing some problems. In this case too, his problems and his details will thus have ended up in the PN’s hands.”
If this is indeed the case then I cannot but agree more with Joseph Muscat that this behaviour is shameful, and scandalous even more so when some people close to the PN expected the PL to not even talk about it and hush things up!
Whether PBO will be ditched by the PN or not is their problem and theirs to solve. While many friends think he will be given the sack, I would rather think that he would be kept in the saddle, end up sidelined, with his deputy Jean Pierre Debono effectively doing most of the critical and political work of a secretary general.
At the end of the day what matters most is whether Lawrence Gonzi will stick to his by now customary role of staying in the shadow or whether he will own up and assume full responsibility rather than leaving it up to others to do a ‘clean up’ job. After all as PBO said in his damage controlling media conference: “The Prime Minister is informed with what the party is doing. The Prime Minister knew about this mechanism”.
e-mail: [email protected]
Leo Brincat is the Main Opposition Spokesperson for the Environment, Sustainable Development & Climate Change