Some are more equal than others

The shock revelation in The Sunday Times of Malta of Parliamentary Secretary Franco Mercieca pocketing some €3,600 in one single morning performing eye operations during ministerial duty is possibly the most memorable moment of the first 100 days of this government.

Does the Prime Minister intend to allow ministers to do private work to increase their takings?

The Prime Minister has since ordered the parliamentary secretary to stop his private practice, thereby acknowledging that what was going on was wrong.

But there are still several outstanding issues.

For starters, given that the Prime Minister is now acknowledging that the whole episode was mishandled, he needs to show us that his pre-electoral pledges on political responsibility were genuine.

Who is going to carry political responsibility for the Mercieca debacle? Mercieca? Joseph Muscat? Both? Or no one?

And there are indeed many reasons why political responsibility ought to be shouldered. Let me mention some of them.

Firstly, the Prime Minister acted beyond his powers (ultra vires) when he granted Mercieca the right to defy the ministerial code of ethics and proceed with his private practice. The code gives no power to the Prime Minister to do so.

The fact that Mercieca went beyond the limits of the waiver only makes it worse and proves that the Prime Minister’s decision was a case of bad political judgement in the first place.

Secondly, both Mercieca and Muscat were found to be economic in the truth if not in outright falsehood. Top of the list was their claim that Mercieca would only perform eye operations that only he could perform in Malta. Instead, Mercieca was exposed by The Sunday Times of Malta performing operations that can well be done by others in Malta, notably, routine cataract operations and cosmetic eye surgery.

Similarly, we were told that Mercieca was only performing operations that were already booked a long time ago but this was contradicted by a video recording in which a journalist was seen seeking to make a new booking.

We were also told that Mercieca would only operate in his free time on Sundays when other politicians are busy doing the rounds of village band clubs. But this too turned out to be false when Mercieca was caught operating on a weekday when he is supposed to be working as your Parliamentary Secretary for the Elderly.

Thirdly, the €3,600 that Mercieca netted in one single session of operations raises serious questions about the real motives behind the Prime Minister’s decision to allow the waiver in the first place.

Here is a Prime Minister who spent the best part of the last legislature railing against the increase in honoraria for government ministers (which was admittedly a political mistake) who now allows one of his own ministers to net several times the honoraria increase in one single morning.

This begs the question as to whether the Prime Minister intends to allow ministers to perform private practice in order to increase their takings. Surely, the Prime Minister does not think we are naive enough not to see through this ploy.

Fourthly, the massive earnings of Mercieca in one single session of private work during ministerial duty calls for the parliamentary secretary to come clean and declare how much he has earned from his private practice during the first 100 days of this government since his appointment as parliamentary secretary. The public is entitled to know.

Fifthly, allowing ministers to perform private practice implies that they are effectively working as part-time ministers. This too raises questions on why the Prime Minister chose to have a 23-strong Cabinet at an annual additional expense for taxpayers of €6 million if ministers can afford the time to continue with their private work.

Lest I be misunderstood, I have no problem with Mercieca continuing with his private practice and making as much money as he likes. But he cannot do it while he is also a serving member of the government and getting paid a full wage from your taxes as parliamentary secretary. He must choose to do one or the other.

Still less can he and the Prime Minister take us for a ride by telling stories about what exactly is going on.

Coming from a party that three short months ago won a landslide election on a platform of political responsibility, this story reeks of hypocrisy. And it sends the message that for this government anything goes.

This is a test for the Prime Minister’s political credibility and for his authority. If he truly believes in political responsibility than he should draw the necessary conclusions and make sure it is carried.

Otherwise, people would be forgiven for starting to think that, in the best of Orwellian tradition, for this government “all animals are equal but some animals are more equal than others”.

Dr Simon Busuttil is the Leader of the Opposition.