Malta was seeing institutionalised corruption because of the great number of irregularities being allowed by the government, Opposition leader Simon Busuttil said this morning.
Speaking in a recorded interview on Radju Malta’s programme Ghandi x’Nghid, Dr Busuttil said these included the case of Energy Minister Konrad Mizzi’s wife who was being paid €13,000 a month and was selected for the job only because she was the minister’s wife.
In two years, the call Malta Tagħna Lkoll (Malta for all) had been replaced by Malta Tagħhom Biss (Malta is just their’s).
Dr Busuttil said the Opposition would not be intimidated by the government and had a major responsibility to uncover scandals and institutionalised corruption for the sake of transparency and clean politics.
Speaking on the Mark Gaffarena scandal, uncovered by Times of Malta, Dr Busuttil said such affairs were renewing the people’s memories of the 1980s when such obscenities prevailed. These were things which never took place under Nationalist administrations, he said.
Another example that was taking the country back to the 1980s, Dr Busuttil said, was the proposed development at Zonqor. The land was chosen underhandedly and part of it belong to the private sector.
This meant that someone from the private sector was going to get rich on the people’s back. The Labour government was making people multi-millionaires simply because it was obliged to them, he said.
Dr Busuttil also spoke about the tension that existed in Parliament as a result of the behaviour of government MPs. He said the way they attacked the Opposition whenever questions were asked or the way they used inappropriate language was scandalous.
Asked what would be his first task as Prime Minsiter, Dr Busuttil said he was change the Code of Ethics to improve ministers’ standards and behaviour. Rather than improving standards, the Prime Minister lowered them with the changes carried out.
Dr Busuttil said that the Nationalist Party would be launching a set of proposals with which to clean up politics in Malta.
“I want the people to know where I stand on transparency and meritocracy,” Dr Busuttil said.