Our House of Representatives has just celebrated its first 100 years since its inaugural sitting in colonial times after the 7 Giugno riots.

For the first time in its existence the House is now meeting in a specially designated building instead of squatting in the Governor’s palace. It is a building designed by one of the foremost contemporary architects but, such is the eyeball to eyeball tradition of confrontation in Maltese political life, its short life so far has been mired in controversy, hatred and unreasonableness.

To ‘celebrate’ these 100 years, the House held a special sitting which must have passed unnoticed by the general public. Oh, and there was also a Mass at St John’s which may have celebrated 100 years of a Catholic country rather than the solidly non-confessional Malta of today.

Then, this week we were regaled by a sitting of the Public Accounts Committee which was dominated by shouting, vituperation and generally bad behaviour by all involved. It was televised, like all parliamentary sittings and people have been having the time of their lives sharing the most outrageous moments of the sitting.

The Public Accounts Committee is one of the innovations brought in by the Nationalist 1987 administration supposedly following the House of Commons model. Its chairman comes from the Opposition, counterbalanced by members of the government who are in a majority.

It is supposed to exercise checks and balances on the way the government of the day spends our money but this is a very generic task, as this week’s shindig proved. In practice, and under both parties, it has turned out to be a welcome way to kick at the government.

As I said, it is televised over a specially designed channel. I do not recall if similar PACs abroad get this televised treatment but I know for sure that this allows for grandstanding in a massive way. Other countries get down to doing their business in a far more business-like manner and thus they keep the government on its toes.

Readers would know by now the context of this week’s riotous sitting. The PN members on the committee had long been asking former minister Konrad Mizzi to appear before the committee so that he could be questioned by it mainly and supposedly on the Enemalta accounts.

Mr Mizzi played coy. The Opposition on the PAC were relentless. At the end, Mr Mizzi accepted to appear, as long as he could be assisted by two lawyers of his choice, one a former magistrate.

The former minister went armed and prepared. He insisted on reading an introductory statement which I think was much the same statement he had read out in the past, giving his own version of things and preparing his own replies to the questions that would come.

But, cannily, he went off-subject and started attacking the PAC chairman, Beppe Fenech Adami on a number of issues to do with a swimming pool part of which is in an ODZ area and on his share in a company which faced drug trafficking charges.

Another chairman would have perhaps known to sidestep the charges that were coming from Mizzi with his rather grating voice, but not Fenech Adami. The two were then as it were rolling about the floor of the committee grappling with each other. All decorum was lost. Fenech Adami lost control of the sitting which quite clearly was Mizzi’s aim all through.

The shindig is not over yet. PAC will meet again in the coming days. The show will go on.

Of course, Konrad Mizzi is one of the prime three people that the Opposition’s activists would love to see behind bars, along with Joseph Muscat and Keith Schembri.

To have Mizzi answer questions at PAC must have seemed like a trophy moment for the activists, just like the small group of women shouting abuse as vans with accused entered prison on one Saturday evening not so long ago – Daphne kellha ragun, they screamed.

But was it the right strategy? Apart from the ugliness of the sitting itself, those listening to it were reminded of issues we had all forgotten – BWSC, the oil scandal, the price of fuel, Labour’s commitment to reduce the price of energy to homes, etc.

Those who are already convinced Mizzi is guilty as charged will not have found any additional grounds for believing that. Those who are not so convinced will not have found reason to change their opinion.

It was clear from the sitting that, no longer a minister even if possibly a future election candidate, Mizzi’s support from the Abela government is lukewarm at best. He no longer occupies the supremo role he had with Muscat.

While hounding Mizzi the Opposition can find that Abela has meanwhile moved on.

[email protected]