Konrad Mizzi is now the bloodstain that won’t wash

Daphne Caruana Galizia Thursday, 16 June 2016, 10:30 Last update: about 11 years ago

Konrad Mizzi, who hasn’t gone anywhere and who seems keen to sit aboard Muscat’s ship and sink it, has not got the decency to lie down quietly in the shade and pretend to be invisible. And his boss isn’t going to oblige him to do it, either.

Yesterday he turned up to parliament as leader of the debate on the Water Services Corporation estimates – a portfolio he held before the Prime Minister made a pretence of divesting him of it. And the Opposition promptly announced that it would not participate in any debate which he leads, and walked out. But before doing so, the Opposition leader asked whether Mizzi is really a minister without a portfolio, because what it looks like to the Opposition is that he has retained the water, energy and Projects Malta portfolios and that bit of play-acting by the Prime Minister some weeks ago was just a mise en scene.

Simon Busuttil asked: “Is this man still responsible for Malta’s water services? The people have the right to know.” Well, I think we all know that the answer to that is obvious, because Muscat retained all of Konrad Mizzi’s portfolio that wasn’t passed on to Chris Fearne (health) and he also retained Konrad Mizzi in his office at the Auberge de Castille. Nothing has changed except Mizzi’s title and the fact that Fearne has been promoted to Minister from parliamentary secretary for Health, so is fully responsible for the health portfolio which he had been taking care of already anyway. Konrad Mizzi is still in the same office – remember that he has been installed at the Office of the Prime Minister since March 2013, energy ministry and all, and that even when he was made health minister two years ago, he did not move to the Ministry of Health in Merchants Street but stayed in Muscat’s building. He has the same private secretariat as he had three months ago, and he even has, still, his “communications coordinator” Lindsey Gambin, who became completely invisible at a time when communication with the media has been of the utmost essence. So who knows what she has been doing? Collating his scrapbook of corruption reports in the press, perhaps.

Busuttil said in parliament – good for him; this is what people want to hear – that the Opposition does not “acknowledge the legitimacy of somebody who sets up a secret company in Panama for highly suspect reasons, while for the government it’s business as usual and the individual in question carries on as a minister responsible for the same portfolio which the Prime Minister claimed to have removed from him. “The Opposition will not be taking part in this debate,” Muscat said.

The furore broke out when Mizzi stood to move the motion and Opposition MP Marthese Portelli interrupted him to ask whether he is still responsible for water services. Mizzi replied that he is moving the motion “on behalf of the Prime Minister, who is abroad on government business” (Muscat is in Geneva).

The Opposition leader and deputy leader then put in, demanding answers. And the Justice Minister – who lost the Labour deputy leadership race against Chris Cardona (what does it say about Noddy that the Labour Party delegates think Cardona is the better option?) got all sniffy and uppity and said that the Opposition’s behaviour is “out of order”. The Transport Minister, who hasn’t yet struck oil or got the bus system to work properly, went one further and said that Simon Busuttil is “abusing of democracy by making points of order which are not points of order at all, and saying that the government does not respect the Opposition.”

The government whip then entered the fray to say that Konrad Mizzi’s role has been described in the Government Gazette. The Opposition leader asked to see a copy, saying that he had missed it. The Speaker then became involved and instructed Panama Mizzi to move the motion. And this is where the Opposition leader said that the Opposition does not recognise the legitimacy of somebody who sets up a secret operation in Panama and then behaves as though it doesn’t matter. The entire Opposition then walked out.

I’m glad they did it. There should be no form of collaboration with the corrupt. The only way to drive home to people – the sort who live in a world of their own – just how seriously bad the situation is with Konrad Mizzi is to take action to show that it is not business as usual. Mizzi’s continued presence in the government damages the government, the Labour Party, parliament and the country. The fact that he is there still is intolerable and is contributing to the rapid deterioration of standards all round in Malta. You can feel the corruption. You can smell it in the air. Konrad Mizzi has to go, and if he won’t, it doesn’t follow that the Opposition have to play with him. In fact, they should not.