“Suspending yourself on full pay” – this is the new form of disciplinary action reserved for Labour government cronies in the civil service who are caught doing very bad things they shouldn’t have been doing. Everywhere else in what passes for normality, in both the public and the private sector, employees who are suspected of fiddling around with the company finances, of taking cuts on purchases, or actually caught with their hand in the till, are sacked outright.

If they are to be given the benefit of the doubt pending investigations, in line with civil service procedure, then they are suspended until the investigation is completed, following which they are either sacked or brought back in, depending on what is discovered. But they do not, ever, “suspend themselves”.

I bring this up because it struck me as blindingly ridiculous and offensive when the Minister of Education, Evarist Bartolo, announced that Edward Caruana, who has been his vote-canvasser for more than two decades, who he installed in the procurement division of the Foundation for Tomorrow’s Schools when he came to power in March 2013, and who has been accused by the foundation CEO of massive corruption, has “suspended himself on full pay”.

Really, Minister? Your man Caruana suspended himself? You make it sound as though he is an abseiling fanatic. It is you who should have given immediate instructions for him to be suspended from his job, and yet you say, as though it is something worthy of praise, that the man has “suspended himself”. And on full pay, too. What’s not to like about a long-term holiday at home with your salary coming in? Of course, that means he won’t be able to carry on with whatever shady action Philip Rizzo, the erstwhile CEO, has accused him of. But I’m quite sure he’ll find a way round it.

This “suspended himself” business just serves to show how tight the bond is between Edward Caruana and Evarist Bartolo, and how far back it goes. Bartolo is not angry at Caruana. He does not feel betrayed by him. If he did, he would have slammed the job-door shut in his face at once. He would have issued a statement saying that Caruana has been suspended with immediate effect, on half pay, that he has been given strict orders not to approach anybody connected with the Foundation, or its premises, pending the outcome of investigations. He would have communicated, to the press and the public, his dismay at being let down by somebody he trusted.

But Bartolo, the Education Minister, did none of those things. Instead, he expected us to be impressed at the fact that his man “suspended himself”. And he has refused to take any questions about the matter since then, in line with the Labour Party’s pledge for transparency and openness.

All this tells me, unfortunately, that Bartolo must have had some idea of what was going on. I am being cautious here, because I am realistically inclined to believe that he knew exactly what was going on and that is precisely why he gave his canvasser that particular job in the first place. It’s a job that usually goes to a tried-and-tested civil servant of the old school, and not to a minister’s vote-canvasser who happens to have been on the civil service payroll elsewhere. Bartolo is not naïve. In fact, he is anything but. He is the most incredibly suspicious cynic who has spent the last three decades putting his suspicions about the rival party and its politicians into newspaper columns, anonymous and otherwise (Maria l-Maws; Minn Wara l-Persjani) for the Labour-sympathising press.

In the last general election campaign, he was all over the place hurling accusations and fronting press conferences about the infamous clock, which now seems so pathetic and trivial compared to all this mega-corruption, and the skandlu taz-zejt.

Lots of people of my acquaintance like Evarist Bartolo because he plays the suck-up-to-the-tal-pepe game and impresses them with what they want to hear: that English is important, that English should be used, that Maltese should not be prioritised over English because English is more useful. They melt before him when he says these things. I never liked him. He has all the appeal to me of a snake lurking in the grass, waiting for the right moment to hiss about an apple. I’m really not at all surprised to hear about this mess involving his main man on the campaign trail, especially not when you consider that Edward Caruana’s brother is the permanent secretary at the Education Ministry. It’s too much of an imbroglio to be dismissed as a series of coincidences.

 

www.daphnecaruanagalizia.com