Ministers speaking in parliament on Wednesday reacted to criticism made by the ombudsman in a newspaper interview, but members of the opposition said the criticism came as no surprise and was justified.
Economic Services Minister Josef Bonnici referred to the ombudsman's remarks on spending by public corporations.
He said the corporations had drastically reduced their debts, and he could not therefore understand how the ombudsman said that corporations were spending as much as they liked.
He said the chief executive at the Water Services Corporation had been given the same salary he had enjoyed in the private sector.
The Labour government had appointed chief executives at Enemalta, Maltacom and IPSE with a higher salary, yet this was not mentioned by the ombudsman. In the last year of the Labour administration, Maltacom spent Lm1 million on consultancies but the ombudsman did not say anything about that.
Referring to the ombudsman's claim that Air Malta appointments of summer workers were made according to political leanings, Prof. Bonnici said the case the ombudsman had studied actually referred to the time of the Labour government.
Infrastructure Minister Francis Zammit Dimech referred to an earlier remark by Labour MP Jose' Herrera and said that the Labour government had not only not set up administrative tribunals, but it amended the Code of Organisation and Civil Procedure in a way which stripped the courts from any authority they had to go into government operations. The mentality of the Labour government had been one of absolute power.
It was political arrogance of the opposition to think that the government should not reply to the sort of comments the ombudsman had made about it.
The Times had asked in an editorial how, given his seven years in office, it was only now that the ombudsman had decided to speak the way he did.
In fact less than 10 of the ombudsman's recommendations were not taken up by the government. This surely showed that the government had respected the ombudsman.The government always took up recommendations which could be implemented.
Parliamentary secretary George Pullicino observed that the ombudsman had said the Malta Environment and Planning Authority was the body which was the second highest cause of complaint by the people to his office.
MEPA decided on an average of 7,000 development applications each year. Between 1995 and 2002, the ombudsman had 312 complaints regarding MEPA, a minimal amount considering that in the same period the authority decided over 50,000 applications.
Of the 312 complaints, the ombudsman only upheld 76, 0.15 per cent of the cases decided by the authority. And all but two of the recommendations made by the ombudsman had been upheld by the authority. Implementing one of them, on refunds, would have been illegal. In the other case, enforcement action had not yet been taken.
The number of complaints regarding MEPA going to the ombudsman was decreasing, the ombudsman himself having noted that there was a marked reduction of 25 per cent from the previous year in the number of complaints regarding MEPA.
Mr Pullicino said he could not understand how MEPA could be criticised for lack of law enforcement when enforcement action was now a regular feature of its activities. Under the Labour government the authority did not even have the vehicles it needed to enforce the law.
Parliamentary Secretary George Hyzler said his regret was the tone of the ombudsman's attack, this when Mr Sammut enjoyed the support of both sides of the House. Rather than the interview, it would have been better had somebody requested a debate in the House. One had to be careful that people in responsible positions such as ombudsman did not overstep their responsibilities as that risked undermining public confidence in their institutions.
Labour MP Joe Cilia said the government was trying to get rid of a person of integrity who was trying to serve the country well.
What the ombudsman had said came as no surprise. For example, no one was surprised by the ombudsman's remark that Air Malta employed Nationalist Party supporters as summer workers, or the injustices at the Armed Forces.
Had he been minister or parliamentary secretary, Notary Cilia said, he would have thanked the ombudsman for drawing his attention to abusive behaviour.
Notary Cilia said the House should consider setting up a mechanism to follow-up the complaints made by the ombudsman. That the government was rejecting some of the ombudsman's recommendations did not strengthen that institution.
Dr Louis Buhagiar (MLP) said the house had appointed Mr Joe Sammut as the ombudsman because of his integrity, impartiality and experience. As parliamentary secretary for 22 months, he had always accepted his recommendations, because the government could not be prosecutor, judge and jury, as the present government was now doing.
The ombudsman made his recommendations on the basis of the facts before him and he clearly knew the problems the people were facing.
The ombudsman was right in his criticism of parliament. Indeed, ministers were often not replying to opposition MPs' questions.
He was also right to ask why the chief executive of the Water Services Corporation had a salary which was double that of the prime minister, especially when he did not have the experience to justify that salary.
Despite the government's savage attack on the ombudsman, the people still had confidence in the institution, Dr Buhagiar said.
Labour MP Evarist Bartolo said the complaints made by the ombudsman in his interview had already been made repeatedly in the House Business Committee and nothing was done about them. He had, therefore, been correct to make his points in the newspaper interview.
The ombudsman had, in one of his reports, called on both sides in the house to break the circle of clientalism. Mr Bartolo said he had asked the prime minister about this, and Dr Fenech Adami had told him he did not agree there was such a circle because he had worked hard to stop this.
What would the government have done had the ombudsman used the terms klikka tal-poter and tal-mafja, used by former President Censu Tabone in his biography?
Mr Bartolo said he was worried that the institution of the ombudsman and not the person was being attacked. This was very serious since the ombudsman was a parliamentary institution.
Indeed, there was need for parliamentary institutions, such as the Public Accounts Committee, to be strengthened.
He referred to an inquiry into the Foundation for Tomorrow's Schools and said that the opposition's representative was not being allowed to see the relevant documents. What kind of inquiry was this?
Labour MP Helena Dalli said the opposition had not reacted to the interview because there had not been anything new in it. The points raised by the ombudsman were known. The opposition only reacted following the government's reply.
It was shameful that the government had reacted to the ombudsman's reports only when they were carried in a Sunday newspaper.
Ms Dalli denied that the government was effectively decentralising its power, as ministers had said. What the government was doing was setting up expensive authorities and companies run by "blue-eyed boys" who were told what to do by Castille. This was not an improvement to democracy.
The situation now was that the government was reacting to what was said in the media, but not in parliament.
Concluding remarks by Social Policy Minister Lawrence Gonzi and Opposition leader Alfred Sant were reported yesterday.