“The Ombudsman criticises us every year,” Civil Service head Mario Cutajar accused, “but he should be clearer about his own standards on persons of trust”.

The former GWU secretary, chosen by Joseph Muscat to head the civil service and appointed by Robert Abela to sit on the cabinet committee on governance, lashed out at the Ombudsman for doing his duty.

The Ombudsman has long pointed out that employment of individuals to “positions of trust” is irregular and a potential breach of the constitution. The rampant recruitment of individuals on a position of trust basis does not make the practice legitimate, the Ombudsman declared.

Mario Cutajar wasn’t pleased. Cutajar’s own appointment served to protect Labour’s government which is less interested in the good of society than in buying loyalty.

To retain favour with its supporters Labour needs to continuously reward them.  Whatever gets in its way of making ad hoc decisions is an obstacle to be overcome. The Ombudsman is one such obstacle for Cutajar and his government.  So the Ombudsman has become Labour’s latest target. The man chosen by Robert Abela to sit on the cabinet committee on governance has become Labour’s weapon against the Ombudsman, whose role it is to promote good governance.

Abela’s government is ever more authoritarian as it becomes more clientelist. Its hallmark once was ignoring independent oversight. Now it is crushing the very institutions tasked with that independent oversight. It overturns reports of the Standards Commissioner, buries damning NAO reports on Electrogas, Vitals, the ITS deal, completely ignores recommendations of the independent inquiry on Caruana Galizia’s assassination.  And now it publicly denigrates the Ombudsman for daring to highlight the obscene abuse of Abela’s administration at the taxpayers’ cost.

These are all steps in a process of facilitation for government to use public resources where it deems politically expedient. Robert Abela is a creature of this disgraced degraded democracy.  He epitomises social media celebrity politics, supported by a fandom and caught in a network of personal favours and obligations.

Labour knows it is far wiser to dish out favours, closing both eyes to rampant abuse and actively covering up for those within its ranks committing that abuse. This is the politics not of values but of demands. Labour supporters are united around demands, mostly for their friends’ or their own personal enrichment. As long as Labour can continue to satisfy those demands it will continue to command majority support. Its electoral coalition is glued together by the knowledge that Labour will break all the rules to satisfy even the most outrageous demands.  This is the context in which we need to understand the rampant corruption and the shameless secrecy that prevents the public from finding out more.

That is why Cutajar is enraged. The Ombudsman exposed Labour’s rottenness in his report. He highlighted the anomalous positions of trust appointments and how Labour abuses this system. He categorically stated that the practice was unconstitutional. Labour’s way of ensuring it can continue to abuse as it pleases was the Appointment (Persons of Trust) Bill - a shameless attempt to establish a legal basis for the outrageous practice.

A glimpse of that abuse was revealed in the recently published NAO Annual report. An audit on the Foundation for Medical Services (FMS) highlighted “irregularities” in the employment of persons on a trust basis.

Persons of trust can only be employed if positions advertised are not filled.  But FMS didn’t even bother to issue calls before filling positions with persons of trust.

One such person was appointed on 4 August 2017.  Just weeks later an internal call for applications was issued and that person was the only applicant. By 1 January 2018, the person was engaged on an indefinite contract, but the interview for that post was only held on 18 January, 17 days after the person had already been appointed.  Barely one year later, an internal call was again issued.  The same person was promoted, with the contract of service dated 22 April 2019 but the interview held one week later. By August 2020, that person was appointed by FMS, attaining indefinite status.  This was in clear violation of the policy that clearly states “persons engaged on a trust basis are not entitled to the attainment of indefinite status”.

Upon appointment that officer’s salary was pegged to the maximum of scale 6. That broke all the rules.  Only those recruited to scale 2 or 3 may be appointed to the maximum salary scale.

Another officer was appointed to a position of trust for three years. The day the contract expired, that person was given a 5 year contract.  The policy clearly states that “the duration of the contract for a person of trust shall be of one year, renewable yearly”.

Another FMS employee was earning in 2020 a basic salary that he would only be entitled to in 2022.  The 2020 salary was higher than the equivalent maximum scale.  That person also benefitted from a car cash allowance “on a personal basis” although the person was not entitled to it.

At FMS alone there were 59 persons of trust. No wonder Labour desperately conceals the number of persons of trust it recruits.

Political loyalties rest on personalised promises of reward. The main reason for voting Labour is not ideological but the guarantee of getting what you don’t deserve - a direct order, a position of trust, a political appointment, an undeserved promotion, excessive salary, an indefinite post. The rule that those who work hardest succeed appeals only to those working hardest - they are the minority. The rest, the majority, find that position of trust on an inflated salary and undeserved benefits far more appealing.

Labour knows from polling, market research and social media sentiment analysis what to offer to enough people in the right places to retain power. It has all the state resources at its disposal and the sheer impudence to do so. And no auditor general or ombudsman is going to stop them.