Driving blind

We have it on the best authority that the government owns 10,000 residential properties, more or less. The government doesn't know for sure how many. Nor does it know how many of them are vacant, let alone whether those that are occupied are appropriately occupied. They are allocated by one arm of government and administered by another with the greatest social justice possible under the handicap of monumental ignorance.

Conservatively valued at Lm5,000 each, we're talking of Lm50 million of taxpayers' money, more or less, in God knows what condition and enjoyed by Mr & Mrs Your-guess-is-as-good-as-anybody's.

The government collects rent. Maybe. If the government is not sure of the exact number of its properties, can it be sure it is collecting all the rent? How in heaven's name can it have any idea who is occupying what under what title, if it is not sure which or how many properties are vacant? This is a government that has held the reins of power with almost no interruption since 1987, is confident to carry on until 2008 and will be asking for another five years after that. In Maltese politics anything is possible.

Now I am all for governments that assist the needy although I am no advocate of the party-prostitute nanny state and certainly not tolerant of the dead-to-the-world-drunk nanny state. Ignorance is no excuse for any government that deserves the name. Ignorance by the state means injustice to taxpayers who have their property in trust with an irresponsible trustee. Above all, it is an intolerable injustice to the truly needy who are made to share the shrinking welfare cake with an unknown number of parasitic opportunists.

How many people in government-owned housing can easily afford to buy their homes? In the present state of government ignorance it is pointless to propose a means- testing exercise to engineer a release of state capital which can be fruitfully reinvested. Voluntary schemes are no solution. Even if such properties were sold for a song, it would mean a recovery of capital that is otherwise lost forever in the morass of poorly kept statistics. It can't be done because we don't really have a government.

If we had transparency in government, my guess is that we would want the blighters arrested for indecent exposure. These people want us to pay our taxes and have the gall to point fingers at us for living beyond our means when they are prodigal with property they hold in trust. Our principal extravagance is letting them get away with calling themselves the natural party of government.

On a Net TV chatshow some time ago John Dalli pleaded ignorance about the BICAL bank saga. It was before his time, he said. The show went on to discuss high finance and public accounts. I did not get a chance to come back to the outrageous statement.

The Minister of Finance doesn't know about BICAL Bank? Because it was before his time? I kicked myself all the way home for letting him get away with it so glibly. There was nothing in the papers on the morrow nor the next day, nor ever since. Nobody seemed to notice. Not a single journalist squeaked.

The BICAL bank saga is happening today. It's not an event of 1972 when the government took over control from its owners. Its licence is suspended. It is still a registered banking institution under the minister's responsibility. Much more, it is still under the control of his minions. If the Minister of Finance didn't know, he did not deserve to be the Minister of Finance.

What he certainly knows is that the assets of BICAL Bank outstripped its liabilities by six to one right from the start; Lm2 million worth of debts to Lm12 million worth of assets in 1972 money. What he certainly knows is that it has taken so long for the government-appointed controllers to pay depositors that interest has stopped running on the original liabilities while the controllers' fees remain a recurrent charge now eclipsing all that has ever been paid to depositors.

There is no question that he knew about the Controlled Companies (Procedure for Liquidation) Act, 1995 that granted immunity to John Earland, Karmenu Mifsud Bonnici and Emmanuel Bonello, the government-appointed controllers who have presided over the disaster. Why? All future controllers were also granted immunity and the government granted retroactive immunity to itself. We don't need to ask why.

Perhaps he does not know what it feels like for the Pace brothers to be jailed for 13 years and be publicly pilloried when they (the Pace's) knew that they could make good to the depositors whatever was owed to them several times over. No one of us can begin to guess. He unquestionably does know that he suffered defeat at their hands in a constitutional case which challenged his attempt to have all BICAL related cases heard away from the ordinary courts in an ad hoc tribunal matching his retroactive ad personam law.

What he certainly knows is that when, not if, the stink from the BICAL case finally gets out it will take more than a public relations genius to make anything respectable of anyone who has borne responsibility there. The only thing in his favour is that the Opposition may have a political interest in collaborating in the conspiracy of silence.

The depositors will be up in arms. The whole financial services sector will feel betrayed by the revelations of an ongoing 30-year scandal, spanning successive government administrations, hidden from public view by those entrusted with guarding Malta's reputation as a place where investors are safe and where the government knows what it is doing. People who have struggled to make a career in the field will be personally impacted by the idiocy and amorality of non-governance.

This is a country where the government does not know about a banking crime still not resolved over some 30 years and doesn't know what it is doing with its own property. Should we doubt that it's all happening or doubt that we have any government at all?

Dr Vassallo is chairman of Alternattiva Demokratika - The Green Party

www.alternattiva.org.mt