I honestly do not think that the current craze for most news websites (with some signal exceptions) to delve into the expenditure made by election candidates derives from anger and a thirst for revenge after the media houses were made to pay €350 for photocopies of the candidates’ election expenses.

The anger is there and it’s a shame that those responsible decided to charge for something that is after all a public service.

The public has a right to know who financed the election campaigns of the candidates and what deals may be lurking in the background. After all this same electorate (or parts of it) had the time of its life being treated to parties galore just like a free wedding every few days.

Many details have come out these past days (except in one media house) and there is much more waiting to be disclosed. Coming to think of it maybe someone thought the media storm would be over in a couple of days and the national discussion moves elsewhere.

More than a couple of days have passed and the media still comes up with new updates every day. And there is still more to come, correlations to make, links to uncover, etc. And we are discovering that some donations have not even been registered.

What is emerging is the complex skein of toxic relationships between business and politics which may be quite high by European or world standards. This is one of the reasons, I argue, why private enterprise in Malta cannot step up and realise its fullest potential, but that’s an argument for another day.

Let us touch on some of the issues that have been uncovered.

The most glaring in my opinion were the hefty sponsorships by companies in the fishing sector to the only candidate who could boast of wide expertise in the sector and who predictably was soon appointed by Robert Abela to a parliamentary secretariat on this same sector, Alicia Bugeja Said. Yet she does not see any conflict in this.

She is a nice girl who came to our house before the election and offered us all sorts of help (which we did not take up) and this is her first legislature. But she must learn to keep the companies in her sector at more than arm’s length. They are wolves in her sector as can be proved by the widespread abuse that leaves our beaches covered in slime at the height of the season. And who go for long years without presenting their accounts. We are not talking of some small garage venture – some have a turnover as big as the drydocks.

Next we come to the two Cabinet heavyweights Ian Borg and Silvio Schembri. The first, also known for his direct orders splurge, has now been cornered by his boss and handed a ministry with the least possible contracts, the Foreign Ministry. Silvio Schembri still runs the roost and he must be too busy to notice that he has left out one big party he gave from the list of donations received.

That is not, I am informed,  the only case of forgotten gifts received. Most donations were in cash and we all know what that means. The complicity involved is staggering. How can a government regulate and control what it is complicit with?

Then we get our born again moralist Evarist Bartolo writing “How do candidates and the parties fund their campaigns?

“The quality of a country’s democracy depends on how we answer this question.

“Is it healthy for citizens and for the country to have party candidates and parties who get most of their funding from fat cats who then pull the strings?

“Where and when this happens, instead of a democracy with empowered citizens and strong and accountable institutions, we have a puppet theatre.”

Ipse dixit.

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