When I was privileged to work for prime ministers Eddie Fenech Adami and Alfred Sant between 1996 and 1999, I absolutely refused to accept the allegations that many ministers then in politics were not only on the make but also on the take.

It has taken me a while to accept I was wrong. But revelations about a whole generation of Nationalist ministers and serving Labour ministers in the last few weeks have lifted the scales from my eyes.

Two former ministers serving in various Nationalist administrations from 1987 to 2013 – Michael Falzon and Ninu Zammit – had money stashed away in Swiss bank accounts. None has explained satisfactorily how they were able to amass such sums.

It is also alleged that the husband of former Nationalist minister Giovanna Debono, still a serving member of Parliament, may have misused public funds entrusted to his minister-wife.

These former Nationalist ministers served in Parliament for an average of 23 years and held ministerial office for an average of 17 years each.

Two of them cheated the country of its taxes, misled Parliament, their leader and parliamentary colleagues and undermined their public calling. One may have knowingly allowed her husband to misuse public funds.

People who hold positions of power in Malta must obey the law. This includes ministers and members of Parliament

By their actions, each of these former ministers has brought the taint of dishonour on the political class and the concept of public service.

One of the important first steps introduced by this government lay in removing the time-bar on politicians who may have committed acts of corruption.

Are these not the sort of cases to be pursued? They still, so far as I know, receive their super-gold-plated parliamentary pensions. Should they not be forfeited?

The leader of the Opposition, still struggling to make his mark, has been rocked by these revelations. But he has been remarkably weak in condemning them.

Not to be outdone, after only two years in office, Labour ministers also appear keen to get their noses in the trough. Two swingeing reports to Parliament by the irreproachably objective Auditor General have cast considerable doubt on the financial conduct of two ministers – one of whom is the Prime Minister himself.

The Auditor General’s report on the government’s hedging agreement with Socar, a company owned by the unsavoury government of Azerbaijan, put the spotlight on Minister Konrad Mizzi by expressing reservations over the extent of the “direction” he had given in an oil-hedging agreement sealed last year.

But the more worrying case concerns the Prime Minister’s personal involvement in the unconscionably flawed business deal reached by the government to buy back the public lease of the Café Premier (above). While I do not hold – as the leader of the Opposition shrilly put it – that the Prime Minister “took a bribe” for his part in the deal, I do agree with the Auditor General’s understated conclusion that shortcomings “detracted from the prudence expected when undertaking disbursements [of public funds] of such magnitude”.

That is a damning indictment calling into question not only the cack-handed and unorthodox manner in which rushed negotiations were conducted right after the last elections but the integrity of the Prime Minister himself. While Joseph Muscat may plead brash overenthusiasm by an inexperienced government, the man who leads our country has lost trust at home. Malta’s good name abroad – on which we depend for economic success – has also been tarnished.

What’s to be done to clean up politicians’ sleaze? One of the first promises made by Muscat on taking office was the commitment to revise the ministerial code of ethics which, after a lapse of 20 years, is clearly unfit for purpose.

The new code has still not seen the light of day – despite several promises of its imminent publication. It is difficult not to suspect in the circumstances that an improved code of ethics, with parliamentary teeth to back it up, does not wholly suit this government’s agenda.

In the light of the bad taste left by the Café Premier deal, the disgust felt by all Maltese at the revelations in the last two years of corruption at Enemalta and the slew of Swiss bank accounts held by Nationalist ministers in the past, the Prime Minister needs to seize the initiative. He has to demonstrate that his earlier commitment to transparency, accountability, honesty and decency in public life will be delivered.

Perception matters in public life. The corrupt behaviour of too many past ministers – and now, the suspicions surrounding some in this government, including the Prime Minister – are becoming the focus of a wider sense of betrayal that many feel about Maltese politics. By seeming to confirm an impression that the political class is rotten and doing nothing about it, the Prime Minister is exacerbating public antipathy to politicians and stoking the wider collapse of public trust in politics.

The first step should be the publication of an up-to-date code of ethics, which spells out the standards expected of both Cabinet ministers and MPs.

These standards should be built around the seven principles of public life: selflessness (acting solely in the public interest); integrity (ensuring ministers do not place themselves under any financial or other obligation); objectivity (making choices purely on merit); accountability (accountable for their actions and subject to scrutiny); transparency (open in all their decisions and actions); honesty (declaring any private interests in their public duties); leadership (promoting these principles through personal example).

Importantly, there has to be somebody who will police the code of ethics and conformity to the principles of public life. The need to establish an independent person to act as the ‘Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards’ in the House of Representatives is now paramount.

He would be a person of standing and probity (perhaps a retired chief justice or judge) with the powers to apply the rules set out in the code of ethics independently and of his own initiative.

He would oversee the maintenance and monitoring of the register of members’ financial interests and ensure they are honestly and accurately recorded. He would offer guidance to MPs on matters of conduct, propriety and ethics.

Above all, he would investigate complaints about ministers or members of Parliament who are allegedly in breach of the code of ethics and report his recommendations to the Speaker for appropriate action or, alternatively, a ‘Select Committee for Standards’, if one is formed.

All Maltese are equal under the law. No person or group is above the law. People who hold positions of power in Malta must obey the law. This includes ministers and members of Parliament.

An ordered and efficient country depends on a compact of trust between leaders and led.

Recent cases of public dishonour and sleaze demonstrate starkly that a comprehensive code of ethics, overseen by a Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards with powers of investigation and redress, is well over-due.