Transparency begins at home

Some weeks ago Nationalist MEP Simon Busuttil wrote an opinion piece in The Times entitled ‘Why Gaddafi reminds me of Labour’.

The tone of the article was so uncharacteristically petty that it led readers to ask if it had really been penned by him.

Instead of the rational and nuanced article we have cometo expect from Dr Busuttil, thiswas simply a repetitition of the current spin being pushed by PNpropagandists.

It’s not a very cunning, subtle, or relevant strategy, but one which is based on reminding us incessantly about the Labour Party’s ties with Muammar Gaddafi.

Since the colonel has finally been recognised as the villain that he has been all along – and since he is no longer in power – it is now open season on him and anybody who co-operated with him.

That – of course – includes the Labour Party. If there is any way of making political capital from linking Labour to a bloodthirsty dictator who sponsored international terrorism, so much the betterfor the Nationalist Party and its exponents.

So we are constantly reminded of the dark days of the Mintoff regime, the distribution of the Green Book and the hated green passports.

The trip down this drearymemory lane would not be complete without a reminder of Gaddafi in full tribal regalia being brought over to Malta as a guestof honour in the days of a Socialist administration.

Dr Busuttil then continued to thump this particular ‘Labour Loves Gaddafi’ drum in his follow-up article. Perhaps realising that his recollections of what took place in the 1970s and 1980s were not cutting much ice with that cohort of his readers who are too young to remember anything pertaining to those decades, he adopts a new tack.

This time, Dr Busuttil evinces a sudden interest in the possibility that the Labour Party has received any form of funding from the Gaddafi regime.

He asks if Col Gaddafi sponsored a Labour Party activity during the Bush-Gorbachev summit in Malta and whether there were other activities funded by his regime. And while, we’re on this sleuthing exercise, Busuttil asks, was any Gaddafi money paidto the multi-million euro PLheadquarters?

We need to know the answers to these questions, our Nationalist MEP concludes, to be able to assess the integrity of the Labour Party and to be able to reach our own assessment as to whether the PL’s refusal to condemn Gaddafi was simply a refusal to bite the hand that feeds it.

I won’t go into the issue of which administration was closer to the Gaddafi regime. There is evidence which shows that both courted the colonel when they thought he could be helpful in solving our illegal immigration woes.

I may have missed it, but I don’t recall any howls of condemnation from the PN or the PL, when Gaddafi popped over to visit Silvio Berlusconi and declared that he would turn Europe black with migrants unless the EU paid Libya €5 billion a year.

When Dr Busuttil visited the detention camps in Tripoli, he made no comment about state-sponsored terrorism, preferring to chirrup about the not-so-bad state of the camps. There are photos of Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi coming close to nuzzling Gaddafi’s ear when the colonel embraced him in a bear hug just days before the rebels took to the streets.

Even then, I don’t suppose the issue of whether Libyan monies were being funnelled to the Labour Party featured very high up on the agenda that day.

It is only now that Gaddafi is down and out that the Nationalists are harrumphing about the importance of having total transparency when it comes to Labour’s sources of funds.

Now, openness about donations given to political parties is one of the principles which politicians should adhere to. The rationale underlying the requirement for full disclosure of donations is that the public has a right to know how its representatives are being funded, so voters will be in a position to know if donors are receivingpreferential treatment or unduly influencing policy.

In other words, if Dictator X was pumping money to Party A, the public should have a right to know about this, so that if Party A makes it to government and startstailoring its policies to suit the Dictator Donor or awards tenders to his henchmen, the electorate will be able to reach its own conclusions about that party.

So Dr Busuttil is correct in requesting transparency and disclosure of party donations. What is very odd about his newly-found zeal regarding this issue is why he should limit his requests for openness to the Labour Party and its relationship with Gaddafi.

If he is going to get up on his soap boax to preach about the lack of integrity of parties which do not reveal their sources of funding, why hasn’t he focused his efforts on his own party?

It’s the same party which has been in government for the past three decades - the one which has dragged its feet on introducing disclosure requirements. To paraphrase Dr Busuttil, there are so many questions which need to be answered.

Do we know which individuals or special interest groups have donated money to the PN and been granted lucrative tenders or positions?

Do we know if businessmen are compelled to contribute to the PN coffers in a Maltese version of the ‘pizzo’ – with their refusal bringing upon unwelcome reprisals from the government?

Do we know who contributed to the multi-million euro PN headquarters? Perhaps Dr Busuttil could overcome the trauma of having to read the Green Book to tackle these questions. Transparency – likecharity - begins at home.

cl.bon@nextgen.net.mt