In North Korea, a film on the life of the current leader Kim Jong-un is broadcast regularly on TV. This week, a news agency from the country’s southern neighbour noted that the tenth repeat of the film had something missing.

Jang Sung-taek, Kim’s uncle and, until recently, holder of the top post in the country’s defence commission, had fallen from grace and been executed. The country’s political propaganda machine dealt with this in the way that totalitarian regimes of all stripes and colours deal with situations like these: Jang, erstwhile holder of an important position, was edited out of the film and his nephew’s – and the country’s – life. That easy.

Comrade citizen in Brussels

It’s not exactly auspicious; therefore, that Malta’s PBS chose this same week to do some airbrushing of its own. Minister Edward Scicluna appeared in front of the European Parliament’s Economic and Monetary Affairs Committee and took questions from the members. One of the questions posed was – unsurprisingly – about the government’s planned sale-of-passports scheme.

“This country overcame challenges when it was fearless,” Scicluna had valiantly said of the euphemistically called “Individual Investor Programme” (IIP) in the Budget Speech. But if there was fearlessness in Scicluna’s performance in Brussels, it was of the “coraggio, fuggiamo!” variety; he can hardly be said to have risen to the challenge of speaking in complete and coherent sentences, let alone the more substantial issues.

But this most cringe-worthy of spectacles, with a Minister who could not remember the name of the one company that will carry out due diligence and who dismissed the Maltese as people lacking in calibre, was significant for other reasons. On a scheme that was presumably so important to the government that the Prime Minister took time off from his duties to promote it in London and Miami, and that was rushed through Parliament in less than a fortnight, a senior member of the Cabinet sounded a general retreat.

The non-news everyone else is interested in

If you thought that was incredible, consider the fact that, to the powers-that-be at PBS, a 180-degree turn in government policy is not considered newsworthy. This was a matter which, let us not forget, was picked by news sources from the American Midwest to China, from provincial papers to the Financial Times. As with other important public institutions, the Labour government has brought the PBS to heel. Nothing to see here – keep moving, folks. This episode is reminiscent of the Bongu Malta Socjalista, Run Rabbit Run infamous era. The early eighties was a time when the then Opposition leader would, as a matter of policy, not be mentioned by name by the public broadcaster. One would have thought that these Orwellian aspirations would have long been forgotten. However, it seems that the same Labour Party that had no scruples in abandoning basic socialist tenets of solidarity still resists the total rejection of its old authoritarian methods.

Mhux fl-interess tal-poplu! (Not of interest to the people!)

Now, I don’t mind PBS acting as if it is oblivious to a Maltese Minister, with egg all over his face, making not only himself but also his country look ridiculous. Things like that are painful to watch, even for people from the other side of the political divide. But Scicluna said some very significant things that the national broadcaster cannot dismiss as being devoid of any news value and thus of no interest to the people.

Take, for example, Scicluna’s opening shot that the IIP is not about the deficit, that after discussion with his Permanent Secretary (you see, it’s always the others who are to blame) the scheme is expected to generate only €8 million. How strange. When Joseph Muscat announced his bright idea of how to take the Maltese economy out of “pre-history” (his words), he said the scheme is expected to generate €30 million in the first year alone. Minister Mallia had even mentioned the sum of a billion euros.

There could be many reasons for this. It could be that Scicluna and Muscat, despite being in the same cabinet with collegial responsibility, are not singing from the same hymn sheet. It could also be that, within a few months, the government had gone through its calculations and found that its previous estimate had been three times more than it should have been.

Finally, and this would be the most damning possibility, the government says one thing in Malta and then goes and talks out of the other side of its mouth abroad. To the Maltese, it talks of the pot of gold it has just discovered at the end of the rainbow; at the European Parliament in Brussels it says it’s a minor issue that can be overlooked. Whatever might have happened, whether blunder or con, (and PBS could have easily sent one of its journalists to ask Scicluna which it was), news it certainly was.

We told you so: our citizenship is not for sale

Scicluna referred to the “negotiations” with the Opposition. The Opposition made its views clear during the parliamentary debate and formulated those views as amendments to the Bill that the government MPs duly proceeded to vote down. Had it listened then, while the debate was limited to our House of Representatives and knowledge of the scheme limited to Malta, damage would have been minimal. Courting the Opposition now will count for little in restoring the credibility – and dignity – that lies in tatters far beyond our shores.

From Scicluna we now learn that those same points that the Opposition had insisted upon and which he, amongst others, voted down just a month ago, are practically taken to be a fait accompli. Applicants are to have some “bonding” with Malta: a period of residence and real investment, the kind that generates wealth and jobs and does not merely pay ministerial salaries.