Transparency International’s eagerly awaited yearly global corruption rankings have been published. Malta is officially the most corrupt it’s ever been. Not that anybody needed any reminding.
We see it, touch it, smell it, feel it every single day. All around us we witness the devastating effects of Labour’s corruption - from a dilapidated St Luke’s Hospital literally falling apart while the Mater Dei staff canteen is used as a hospital ward, to Yorgen Fenech’s quad towers, the oil tanker berthed next to Konrad Mizzi’s Electrogas power station, to Joseph Portelli’s towering developments. As we navigate past illegal restaurant tables occupying public pavements under high-rise illegal developments dwarfing village cores and historical sites, we know that dark shadow is corruption.
Now Transparency International confirmed our worst fears. Malta has dropped down further. On Transparency’s Corruption perception index, a score of 100 is very clean, 0 is totally corrupt. Malta’s score is now just 51, a drop of 3 points in just one year - another blow to the nation’s tattered reputation.
Malta has the same score as Saudi Arabia and Rwanda. Malta is closer to Colombia (43) than it is to the European average (66) in the corruption stakes.
This is where Malta stands - at the same level as some of the most corrupt countries. Muscat’s promise that he’d make Malta the best in Europe sounds even more ridiculous than it ever was. Malta is close to being Europe’s most corrupt. Labour managed, in an amazingly short time, to drag Malta down to unprecedented corruption levels. And it’s not the PN that’s saying so. It’s Transparency International’s Corruption Perception Index - the leading global corruption indicator.
So why has Malta crashed to such dismal corruption ratings? One main reason Transparency International pointed to is political interference in public media.
Transparency couldn’t have been more right. PBS, the national broadcaster, completely controlled by Labour, didn’t even bother to report Transparency’s Corruption perception index - and Malta’s record low ratings. That’s not surprising when Labour’s own Norma Saliba is head of news.
All major news organisations reported the corruption index publication. Reuters published it as one of its main news items. CNN reported on the US’s ranking. The BBC had a full item on the event. So did the Guardian which reported the UK’s drop to 18th place. RAI News announced Italy’s ranking and Deutsche Welle Germany’s. But PBS didn’t bother even referring to Transparency’s publication. Maybe it wanted to prove how right Transparency was when it condemned the political interference in Malta’s public media.
There are other reasons why Malta is doing so badly. The first reason Transparency listed for Malta’s corruption is that the Caruana Galizia Inquiry recommendations have not been implemented. And whose fault is that? Robert Abela’s. That inquiry report has been gathering dust for over 18 months while Abela obstinately blocks every call for proper implementation of even the most basic of those recommendations.
But there’s another reason. Transparency highlighted the “state of impunity with no convictions in cases of high level corruption” as the main reason for Malta’s new corruption record.
Bang on cue we had an elegant demonstration of what Transparency had in mind. “The court is making it clear to both the prosecution and the AG’s office that such behaviour as manifested today is not acceptable”. What made Magistrate Monica Vella lose her rag?
The court convened to hear from the prosecution and the AG’s office whether more evidence was to be brought before the court in the case of Melvin Theuma’s phantom job. One of the accused is Joseph Muscat’s chief of staff, Keith Schembri. Another is the head of Joseph Muscat’s customer care office, Sandro Craus.
That photo in Castille of Keith Schembri smiling with Theuma’s arm wrapped round his shoulder with a framed image of Joseph Muscat and Keith Schembri in the background remains a classic.
Theuma, the self-confessed middleman in Daphne Caruana Galizia’s murder was given a phantom job on the government payroll five months before her assassination. That job was allegedly fixed for him by Keith Schembri and Yorgen Fenech. Theuma never went to work. He was simply paid for something - certainly not for his work as a messenger-driver.
The prosecution was meant to inform the court whether it would submit more evidence against Schembri. In a previous sitting the prosecution only presented two witnesses - a bank representative and the CEO of the government Housing Maintenance and Embellishment company which ostensibly employed Theuma.
Although the AG’s Office and the Prosecution had 15 days to make a decision about further evidence, Prosecuting Officer Nicholas Vella timidly informed the court that the prosecution wasn’t in a position to declare its position. The AG’s lawyers hadn’t bothered to check the testimonies of the two witnesses from a fortnight before. They had done absolutely nothing. The court session was swiftly brought to a close by the understandably irate Magistrate.
This was no ordinary case. This is a case of the highest national importance. It is linked to the vilest and most barbaric liquidation of the government’s foremost critics, Daphne Caruana Galizia. That critic was uncovering some of the most damning evidence implicating the government minister closest to Joseph Muscat, Konrad Mizzi, in a scheme involving the Electrogas power station. She was exposing the links between Konrad Mizzi, Keith Schembri and 17-Black. She wasn’t given enough time to identify Yorgen Fenech as the owner of that black company - but others did, following on her leads.
This was no mistake on the AG’s part. Her lawyers couldn’t just have forgotten about this case. Their inaction simply confirms Transparency International’s conclusions - that Malta’s state of impunity and its failure to convict senior politicians and officials is no accident. It’s Labour’s deliberate ploy to protect its top brass.
Malta has never been so frighteningly corrupt.