Sant lists three ways to fight corruption

Opposition leader Alfred Sant said yesterday that a bill that introduced in the Civil Code the right for victims of corruption to sue for damages was good, but it struck at the tail and not the heart of the problem of corruption. He criticised the government for not having taken up three suggestions made by the Labour Party on methods to fight corruption.

Corruption, he told parliament, was a phenomenon which was rising all over the world, yet too few people were being convicted of it. One could, for example, see the Enron case in the US, the corruption cases in France, where the President was allegedly involved, and other cases in Italy, Germany and the UK which involved private companies, local authorities, political parties and politicians, freemasons and government officials. One could also recall the corrupt way in which certain EU subsidies and contracts were awarded.

Corruption could not be tackled as if it was a marginal matter. In an overt and covert way, it was finding itself in a growing percentage of state operations.

Measures being taken to fight corruption did not strike at the heart of the matter - the causes of corruption. This applied to Malta and the other countries. The way in which one regulated the various sectors of the free market decided who should or should not be awarded contracts. It was not just politicians who could be tempted to corruption but also administrators and professionals in decision-making posts.

His view was that no corruption, however small, could be tolerated, not least because it would give rise to a chain reaction. Government operations needed to be as transparent as possible, with controls being such as not to hinder efficiency.

Corruption eroded a country`s moral fibre as well as its efficiency. In Malta`s case, the problem was complicated by small size and omertà which even crossed political lines. In the past 40 years or so, he could not recall any case of anybody being convicted of corruption, despite so many allegations. That showed that the problem was not being faced and contained.

Over the years allegations were made about political corruption in development planning. Following the setting up of the Planning Authority, those allegations did not end but simply were passed on to the administrative level.

Unfortunately various efforts to fight corruption had been mired by partisan politics which made investigation difficult, especially as evidence disappeared with time after government stonewalling.

The PN government of 1987 set up the Commission against Corruption, which still existed and in which he had no confidence. The commission was appointed by the government and answered to it. So how could anyone expect it to investigate and come up with cases which would undermine those who appointed it? The way the commission functioned, as well as some of the members appointed to it, rendered it ineffective. Indeed its results were nil.

Apart from the legitimacy or otherwise of the commission, it had limited investigative powers and scarce resources.

Various governments, in the face of corruption allegations, had also set up ad hoc inquiries. But to date this mechanism had proved to be only a screen for allegations not to be seriously investigated. The PN government had experienced this as well in the Mid-Med Bank inquiry.

Clearly, there was no perfect way to fight corruption, but effective steps needed to be taken to show seriousness and strike at the heart of corruption. The Labour opposition had made three suggestions which the government had not acted upon.

It had said there should be no prescriptive period on corruption cases involving not just politicians, but those holding senior posts in regulatory sectors. In many cases corruption was based on collusion among several people. Such collusion weakened over the years and facts then started to surface.

The Labour opposition had also said there should be comprehensive protection for those who had the courage to reveal information on corruption.

Thirdly, rather than a government-appointed commission to fight corruption, Malta should have a mechanism to fight corruption headed by somebody, such as a judge, who was independent of the government and enjoyed the powers and the resources he needed to investigate corruption. The Labour government of 1996 had tried to set up this structure, but talks with the then Nationalist opposition had not led anywhere.

This bill was good, Dr Sant said, but it struck at the tail rather than the heart of corruption, and stronger action was needed for this problem to be tackled effectively.

Earlier in the debate, Dr Gavin Gulia, opposition spokesman on home affairs, said that according to law, any body, person or corporate, was responsible for its actions. There had, however, always been problems with regard to the responsibilities of the state. This bill, therefore, was welcome because it provided that the state too could be sued and made to pay compensation when corruption was proved.

But the law needed to be enforced. To date hardly anybody had ever been arraigned on corruption-related charges. Victims of corruption could not expect to be given compensation unless proper investigations were made, people arraigned and convicted.

The police economic crimes unit, therefore, needed to be strengthened. The unit needed to have greater manpower and more resources.

Dr Karl Chircop, opposition co-spokesman on social policy, said corruption could be financial or in other ways, such as favouritism or promotion following sexual favours or sexual molestation.

Dr Chircop said he was particularly worried by the way the ETC operated in certain instances.

For example, many questions had been raised over the golden handshake given to Mr Robert Laurenti so that Mr John Camilleri could replace him at the helm of the corporation.

An individual at the ETC had been investigated for the disappearance of around Lm1,000, but nothing more had been heard of the case.

Dr Chircop referred to the collapse of the Price Club. He said the creditors who were owed Lm9 million had increased their consumer prices so that they could recover their losses in this way, to the detriment of the consumer. He said Enemalta had not cut off the power supply to the Price Club at Paola when there was an outstanding power bill in excess of Lm6,000, yet the power was switched off by the corporation as soon as the property reverted to Carter`s, its former owners. This smacked of corruption.

Other cases that came to mind included bank lending in the Daewoo case, the Queiroz pardon, the different weights and measures used by the Planning Authority, and the distribution of social benefits. In three years, spending on children`s allowances had been cut from Lm20 million to some Lm13.4 million, but only Lm500,000 had been attributed to fraud. Where had the remaining Lm5.5 million gone? This could be another form of corruption on the part of the government itself against families that badly needed the benefits they were justifiably entitled to in order to make ends meet.

Opposition health spokesman Michael Farrugia hit out at the way the new hospital project was being handled by the government, particularly how contractors were selected and contracts awarded, in some cases by direct order.

The design and build contract awarded to the Skanska consortium was such that the contractor would be paid before the project was completed, he said. The government`s financial regulations needed to be applied to this project too, because public funds were involved. The way things were going did not provide for transparency and the project would end up costing the people far more than was justified.

Dr Farrugia said other matters also raised suspicion. For example, he could not understand how the call for tenders for hospital waste disposal equipment called for the equipment to be able to handle up to 200 kilogrammes per hour and function for between eight and 24 hours when the amount of hospital waste was, according to figures given by the health minister, far lower than that.

The Labour MP said the Public Service Commission, which regulated civil service recruitment, was being bypassed. He said clerks for the hospital emergency department, instead of being recruited directly by the government, had instead been engaged through the Foundation for Medical Services.