Watching TimesTalk last night I inevitably found myself thinking about what Susan Mendus kept referring to at the Mabel Strickland Memorial lecture on Politics and Morality last week. Ms Mendus asked one central question, “How, in a democracy, can we understand politicians who do what is morally wrong?”

This question only applies to politicians doing what is morally wrong to benefit the country and their constituents, rather than their pockets or serve them get re-elected of course. She spoke about how Machiavelli said that wrongdoing is inevitable because the world in itself is evil, and to get things done politicians sometimes have to do things which are morally wrong.

So was Konrad Mizzi right to interfere with the fuel procurement process at Enemalta when he asked the fuel procurement committee to include Socar in the negotiations and try and get a better price?

There is no yes-or-no answer to this question. Minister Konrad Mizzi spent a whole programme saying the same thing over and over “hand on heart, even with hindsight, I would do the same thing.” Unfortunately, this shows a great deal of arrogance but then again, seeing Konrad Mizzi debate yesterday, there was a certain honesty about him. He truly believed that what he did was for the good of the people.

Susan Mendus continued her lecture by saying that in most cases it was not that wrongdoing was done by politicians but the lying about such wrongdoing that is damaging because “lying disempowers and dehumanises.”

But what if the Minister truly believes that what he did was right even if what was done was morally wrong, and also potentially dangerous with negative effects on Malta in the long run, what then?

Saying that the deal with Socar prevented the consumers to pay an extra 2c at the pump is where the minister hit the proverbial slippery slope. He only focused on the short term gains whilst forgetting all about the long term effect.

For a moment, let’s forget about ethical standards and forget that you don’t give insider information to a preferred bidder so that it can come out better than the others. Let’s forget that this goes against the EU procurement directives which Malta is obliged to abide by and against Malta’s own financial regulations. Hand on heart, the Minister forgot about all this because it benefitted the customer in the short term but what about the ramifications of such government collusion?

In this instance the government didn’t provide a level playing field for all participants because insider information seems to have been given to Socar so they can provide a lower price for a particular shipment of petrol and diesel. This is a very dangerous stance as it risks removing the competition. Next time Enemalta issues another open tender for the fuel procurement committee to evaluate, less companies might decide to bid because they know about this insider trading and they simply don’t want to waste their time and resources.

If you remove competition because you don’t have any participants then you would end up with a monopoly on fuel prices, which means Enemalta would not have any bargaining power left to get the best deals possible.

Socar would not only have a monopoly on the gas delivered to our shores (for the next 20 years) but also on all our petrol and diesel needs.

While I understand and appreciate the fact that the Minister was thinking about the consumer I really hope that he thought about the long term effects his decision might have. Making political deals with dictatorships like China and Azerbaijan, and tying Malta in to these political deals without any oversight or any transparency whatsoever is dangerous.

Susan Mendus finished her talk by talking about press and press freedom saying that a free press is the surest ways to combat wrongdoings. Putting the Minister on stand yesterday and grilling him about why he went to Socar was a good start but more needs to be done. This government needs to be more open and accountable and in this instance the Minister needs to admit that not only did he do something unethical but also something which can put Malta in a tight spot.