Prisoners toil so that Mrs Muscat can play

Daphne Caruana Galizia Sunday, 3 April 2016, 11:00 Last update: about 11 years ago

The news story that broke a few days ago, in which Mrs Muscat and her dressmaker friend were found to have been working prisoners from dawn to dusk on a variety of projects only to leave them unpaid, disturbed everyone who read it. But in all discussions about the disturbing nature of this crass exploitation of vulnerable people for the private business of a dressmaker and the amusement of her friend the Prime Minister’s wife, through whom she obtained access to prison labour, what struck me most is that one of the most important aspects of this shocking story has been overlooked almost completely.

To my newshound mind, it should have been a separate headline: COSTUMES FOR CHOGM SPECTACLE SEWN BY PRISON LABOUR. It certainly deserves a separate story, and lots of questions need to be asked and answered. Did the CHOGM Organisation Committee commission this job directly from the prisoners, or did they commission Mary Grace Pisani while she in turn went to the prisoners? Apparently, it’s the latter. So the first question that has to be answered is this: why did the Prime Minister’s close friend Phyllis Muscat, who headed the CHOGM Organisation Committee, give a direct order for 400 performance costumes to the Prime Minister’s wife’s close friend, Mary Grace Pisani? That is corruption.

Secondly, why did Mary Grace Pisani fill the order by using prison labour? Did she quote on the basis of prison labour? Did she know she could use prison labour already when she gave the CHOGM Organisation Committee her price? Did she give the CHOGM Organisation Committee a price at all, or was she given an open cheque? How much did Mary Grace Pisani bill the CHOGM Organisation Committee for those 400 costumes sewn for her by prisoners, and how much did she promise the prisoners she would pay them? Did she give the prisoners a contract for the order? If so, we should see it. If not, the prison authorities should immediately put an end to her exploitation, in collusion with the Prime Minister’s wife, of people who are incarcerated, who have no idea that they still have rights even those they are in prison, who might not know what those rights are, and who might even think that they may as well spend long hours every day sewing curtains, costumes and dresses for Mary Grace Pisani and Mrs Muscat for peanuts because they have nothing else to do anyway, locked up in there.

The anonymous spokeswoman for the prisoners told journalists that they were up before dawn and sewed for 13 or 14 hours straight to fill those orders. Mary Grace Pisani and the Prime Minister’s wife have denied that and have said that they worked those hours of their own free will and that nobody forced them to wake up before dawn. But a short order for 400 performance costumes puts that starkly into perspective. Fortunately, I am properly trained at sewing (a hidden skill, but one I have nonetheless) so I have a fairly good idea of how long it takes to sew 400 costumes. It would take one person a minimum of 400 days if he or she worked long hours every day at break-neck speed to finish off one costume per day. I have no idea how many prisoners were involved in working on filling this order, but we do know that they have just two sewing machines in Mrs Muscat’s and Mrs Pisani’s prison sweat-shop, because that is how many Mrs Muscat bought for her friend Mrs Pisani to use in prison, using funds donated by people, for charity, to the Marigold Foundation.

So unless Mary Grace Pisani brought in other sewing-machines of her own, you could only have two people working on sewing those costumes on the machines, with others doing hand-finishing. So you’re looking at 200 days, except that they didn’t have 200 days (around seven months) to play with, so they will have been working all the hours they could to make the deadline. And that’s why they had to get up at dawn and keep going until night-time. Those are atrocious sweat-shop conditions.

The Opposition probably thinks it shouldn’t bring this matter up in parliament because it’s not important enough – sewing, charity and all that. But it’s not about sewing and charity. It’s about prison labour in sweat-shop conditions. It’s about prisoners going unpaid. It’s about how prisoners shouldn’t even be sewing things for the Prime Minister’s wife’s friend in the first place. It’s about how the Prime Minister’s wife should not have used her influence to obtain prison labour for the friend who makes dresses and gives them to her for free.

This is the kind of shocking story that would rock the newspapers and the government for weeks in a more civilised European country, and would lead to resignations. The Prime Minister’s wife has no position from which to resign, but the Prisons director certainly should – but then the (acting) Prisons Director was that ex Acting Police Commissioner, Ray Zammit. And that’s another scandal in itself. When you factor Ray Zammit into the equation, it’s no wonder that the prisoners have been exploited, with the full cooperation of the Prime Minister’s wife.