Arrogance and plasticine

Minister Jesmond Mugliett has accelerated the process of unravelling of the Gonzi government, driving a bus through its political credibility.

The Prime Minister, though hit and damaged by the propulsion, helped it along by first evading the issue and then not accepting the minister's offer to resign, compounding the political chaos triggered when the last CEO of the transport authority - ADT - said that Mr Mugliett's ministry had asked him not to sack two employees found guilty by a court of law of misdemeanour.

The outgoing CEO had reinstated the suspended employees, though the court had specifically said, in passing judgment, that they should be banned from holding public office for life.

Once the revelation was made, Minister Mugliett admitted that it was he who had intervened, on grounds that the former two employees had requested a presidential pardon.

The minister's admission was hugely embarrassing to the Prime Minister. But he did not ask Mr Mugliett to resign, sack him or move him to a different ministry.

Rumour has it that, in private, Dr Gonzi did rap the interfering minister on the knuckles. That was not a substitute for political accountability, which remained a dead letter. The story had further to run.

Minister Mugliett indicated to his parliamentary peers that the decision to install the two employees followed "collective discussions".

That implied that the ADT board may have been involved. Not so, according to the chairman of the board, Joe Gerada. He unequivocally stated that neither he nor his board had anything to do with the decision to refrain from sacking the two officials convicted of bribery.

That statement implied that a Cabinet minister had not told the truth. The Times sought official comment. None was offered. Silence was not at all what the situation required. Since the minister claimed there had been collective discussions, and once these were not held with the ADT board, the new implication was that they were held at a political level. Who with? The PM? A group of ministers?

Clarification was urgently required. Yet, when The Times approached the minister on Friday, he declined to react to Mr Gerada's declaration, saying he would be issuing a statement in due course.

The Times quoted Mr Mugliett as telling it: "Just as you and others have the right to follow a story the way you want to, I think I have the right to issue a statement when I want to and how I want to".

The minister may well think that, but he was wrong. His words dripped arrogance. At this stage he should be talking not of dubious rights, but clear obligations. By his own admission, he interfered.

According to him, he did so after collective discussions. According to the chairman of the ADT board, he and his fellow directors were not involved in those discussions. That left a shadow hanging on the PM and the Cabinet.

The minister had an obligation to speak out immediately. Instead he stonewalled. Yesterday it emerged that last Monday he had offered his resignation, but the PM turned it down.

Astonishingly Lawrence Gonzi saw the issue as "a debatable decision". Using plasticine instead of principled politics, he "insisted" that the minister had not given instructions to retain the officials; "merely" to suspend the decision pending their request for a presidential pardon. The PM did not go into the question of who was it that the minister had consulted, leaving open the possibility that Mr Mugliett had consulted him and other ministers.

Dr Gonzi has remained loyal to ministers who fell below the competence grade. Running in the face of good governance he is remaining loyal to a minister who interfered in the execution of a court order, implicated others, the more direct of whom have denied. It is his funeral but why exactly?