Prime Minister Robert Abela does not see anything wrong that names of driving test applicants are passed on to Transport Malta by a minister. The minister is not suggesting that the applicants go for a coffee at the agency’s canteen. The unwritten indication is to have them pass the driving test. It’s not important whether they are skilled enough to obtain a driving licence.

For the Prime Minister, this is a “legitimate” exercise, part of what he describes as “customer service” which he “would be the last” to see eliminated from “our political system”. He defended the minister concerned, Ian Borg, who at the time was responsible for Transport Malta. Abela told us that Borg was just doing his job. Borg himself cheekily remarked that he is proud to be accessible.

We were still trying to grasp the extent of the disability benefits case when the driving test issue made it to the headlines. But, rather than condemn the exercise, Abela condoned it, in a way that encourages others to follow suit. What Abela has said has given his ministers, and other Labour officials, the green light to please Labour supporters more than they already do without fear of any repercussions. Abela has set a precedent which will be hard for him to escape from if other, similar situations develop.

The defiant Prime Minister has even told us that the “system” could work even better. Last Sunday, speaking at a Labour Party activity, he said that there are people employed in “customer care” who are not doing enough. He wants them to push more. In other words, he was advocating favouritism. If you vote Labour, you can get what you want. But passing a driving exam even if you are still not skilled enough to obtain a licence is not “legitimate” as the PM would like us to believe.

The way that Abela is defending the latest in a long list of scandals that have hit his government is more scandalous than the scandal itself.  To have the head of government think, and most of all brazenly say, that there is nothing untoward if a minister uses his power to influence the outcome of a driving test is worrying indeed. One just wonders the much bigger things that ministers are allowed to influence.

It is therefore understandable that the backlash against Abela’s warped thinking is greater than the revelations of the political interference in driving tests.

The Malta Employers Association has gone as far as describing it as an “invitation to anarchy” – a strong reaction, one of the many which also pointed out the risks of having unqualified drivers on the roads, increasing danger. Negative feedback to what Abela said has come from all quarters, except of course from his own Cabinet and party.

What the Prime Minister has said leads to suspicions, if not certainties, that this kind of clientelism runs much deeper than a driving test.

If you know a minister, or someone close to him, you can get a hospital appointment quickly, rather than have to wait a year or two as common mortals do. If you know a minister, you can get a phantom job with the civil service too (remember what the Archbishop of Gozo said?). If you know a government MP, you can get a disability pension you are not entitled to.

These are just a few of the many examples that come to mind after what Abela said, and continues to say, with a straight face.

Before the 2013 election, part of the Labour Party’s campaign was based on “meritocracy”. And we all remember Joseph Muscat, repeating over and over again, that “you may be against us, but we can still work together” (tista’ ma taqbilx maghna, izda tista’ tahdem maghna).  The slogan, for that election, was “Malta Taghna lkoll” (Malta belongs to everyone), but a totally different scenario started when the vote-counting exercise at Naxxar closed.

It did not take long for us to realise that Labour’s intentions were the opposite. Now we have it directly from Muscat’s successor Robert Abela that knowing a minister opens many doors, which means that the same doors are being closed to others, who are perhaps more deserving.

This kind of preferential treatment is reprehensible and unjustifiable.

The Prime Minister has tried to validate this line of thinking by saying that one should not stop helping people, and that if politicians do so they will be locking themselves up in ivory towers, something that he said he has no inclination of doing.

Nobody is suggesting that people should not be offered help. Nobody is saying that politicians should isolate themselves.

But corruption and nepotism are not the right way.