On Wednesday morning we woke up to news reports of yet another corruption scandal. At this rate local corruption scandals are being revealed more often than Kim Kardashian posts selfies online. This latest revelation involved a Gozo bigwig – the former Nationalist minister Giovanna Debono – and her husband Anthony Debono.

It is being alleged that Debono’s husband – who worked in her ministry – had used public funds to carry out construction works for her constituents, free of charge.

According to accounts which appeared in the press, Anthony Debono engaged Gozitan building contractors to carry out cement, concrete and construction works for individuals who happened to be his wife’s constituents.

These lucky Gozitan voters would not fork out a penny for the works themselves. The contractors would invoice the Gozo ministry – not for the works which they had actually carried out – but for other projects falling under the remit of the works department of the Ministry for Gozo, where Anthony Debono was in charge.

That at least is the way the scheme was reported. It seems plausible enough but Giovanna Debono has denied any wrongdoing. The police are investigating the matter. So far, so run-of-the-mill. Just another story of patronage in local politics.

In this case, our ‘whistleblower’s’ revelation is conveniently well-timed for the Prime Minister

What is interesting is the source of the story – the so-called ‘whistleblower’ – who revealed the background of this alleged corrupt set-up. We got to read the irate text message he sent to the minister’s husband and to the minister herself. It read as follows: “Tony too much time has passed and I still haven’t been paid. We can’t go on like this. The works were carried out as you wished and for those persons you told me to work for. Now these people have had their way and I still haven’t been paid. Do you think that’s fair?”

There you have the real motivation behind this revelation.

The contractor is no innocent bystander who has witnessed unsavoury goings-on and reported them to the authorities.

He is not someone who has seen something suspicious taking place and who has sought to prevent illegal activity from occurring. No. He is someone who apparently went along quite happily with this racket as long as the going was good and he was getting paid.

It seems that he found no objection to working in one place and issuing an invoice for another job in an entirely unrelated place. There was no cause for irate e-mails then.

It was only that payment was long in coming that he went running to the press with his exposé. In my book, that’s more of a miffed accomplice who has fallen out with other people involved in the alleged scheme, rather than a whistleblower seeking to uncover illegality or misconduct.

Now I realise that many instances of crime and corruption come to light only because someone in the know, and who wants out, spills the beans. More cases of illegality are revealed and prosecuted because of information obtained from an insider than by purely investigative means. Over in Italy, the ‘pentiti’ have provided a great degree of insider knowledge about the way the mafia operates. The same pentiti have benefitted from witness protection programmes and mitigation of punishment. There is a rationale for utilising the information they can provide.

Still, we should continue to recognise such sources for what they are – people with their own agenda who were willing to be complicit in illegal activity as long as it suits them.

They only crawl out of the woodwork when they can no longer benefit from their underhand dealings and cannot have recourse to the law to enforce their illicit agreements.

In this case, our ‘whistleblower’s’ revelation is conveniently well-timed for the Prime Minister who can use this Nationalist scandal to detract from his abysmal handling of the Premier Café affair.

Maybe he thinks one scandal can serve to neutralise another. I would say that it serves to further alienate people from the political class as citizens want to have even less to do with the whole lot of them.

cl.bon@nextgen.net.mt