The expression ‘comparisons are odious’ was coined hundreds of years ago but it has resisted the test of time. Notwithstanding, political life is nearly everywhere really and truly based on the otherequally-universal axiom of ‘compare and contrast’. More so when an electoral competition is looming.
It is in this context that I choose to entitle my piece today as the one preceding it (October 7) regarding Leo Brincat’s poor showing in the ‘grilling’ session in front of the EU Budget Control Committee. Today’s exercise will take us to the realm of the present government’s policy on positions of trust, which many describe as ‘Joseph’s red army’, in the sense that these people are engaged on the strength of partisan appurtenance to make Joseph Muscat electable once more.
Today’s political commentary is inspired by an excellent article from Dennis Tanti, coincidentally on the same day my first article was published.
In a very effective way, Tanti argues that “this form of employment has exploded under the present labour government that was elected on the platform of meritocracy, equal opportunities and transparency”. He also makes the point that this mechanism of employment is considered to be unconstitutional.
First of all, the situation now (or rather as it was when government had to comply, very reluctantly, with a request under the Freedom of Information procedure invoked by a local newspaper last December) is that there are 542 people currently employed on the basis of the so-called position of trust. While giving this number, government refused to divulge information regarding their contracts.
From this information we came to know that at 112, the Office of Prime Minister is, by far, the ministry with the largest complement of people in this category of employment. Fifty people in these positions were hired without a call for applications and tasked with organising CHOGM and the Valletta Summit on Migration.
The absurdity of the situation was further amply demonstrated when we came to know that among Muscat’s persons of trust there is a dog handler, cleaners, a forklift driver and the coordinator of a crate-washing service.
Recent revelations show that since last December, this position of trust business continued to get bigger and dirtier. At the same time we heard nothing about a commitment made in the beginning of this year by Mario Cutajar, head of the civil service (himself in a position of trust) that by the end of this year the government will be issuing new regulations on the employment of persons of trust.
If this had to effectively materialise, it would have been put in place after the present government had been at the steering-wheel for more than 80 per cent of its mandate.
It is evident that the whole system is being manipulated for one scope: to buy votes and by so doing ascertain a second term in government
It is against this background that I intend comparing like with like. So far we have seen a few aspects of the present position. I am sure that the vast majority of readers can add their own experiences and knowledge-based facts to what has already been stated.
And now to comparisons. To show how things used to be done during the previous administration, I will quote from two separate contributions to a very popular local blog from persons very much in the know about how the system worked.
First of all, no ministerial secretariat could be larger than 20 people, and they had to fit in strictly-named positions, e.g. one head of secretariat, one private secretary, and so on, all the way to two drivers. Of all these, only two individuals, other than the drivers, could be recruited from outside the civil service.
Positions of trust were filled through secondment of civil servants from various departments. The objective was to seek a balance, to allow a few good people to inject fresh ideas but without weakening the ethos of the civil service.
The other contribution on thatblog came from one who describedhimself as “closely involved in the process since it started in 1998” under a Nationalist administration.
In 1998, the Cabinet approved a standard organisation structure for each and every secretariat with fixed positions. Posts could not be created on a whim. The positions were pegged to the appropriate public service salary scales and the total package for each one, including allowances, were also standard.
This organisation’s structure was geared to ensure that the overall majority of secretariat employees were public officers, which meant that the impact on the salary bill was controlled.
All persons proposed had to be submitted for the approval of the Prime Minister. A person’s skills and qualifications also had to be suitable. As an example, regulations required that if a public officer was proposed, his/her substantive salary scale had to be of a similar level to the salary scale of the secretariat pool in question.
Engagements were regulated by a standard contract with a clear position description and any officer could not engage in other work outside the secretariat against remuneration.
Consultants were engaged at ministry level – however nowhere near the scale and numbers we are seeing now. This contributor concludes by stating that the system was not perfect and mistakes were committed. In the main, however, it was rigorous and it was there, unlike the undignified free for all we are currently witnessing.
While I acknowledge that the system “was not perfect”, and noting also criticism of Nationalist administrations by Tanti, I hasten to add that a future Nationalist government will be guided by the party’s commitment in a document published last December entitled Restoring Trust in Politics.
Through this document, Simon Busuttil put forward 109 proposals that would ensure good governance and, consequentially, restore trust lost in politics mostly after the last three years during which Labour infringed nearly all the rules and regulations in the ethical statute book.
The document contains measures to fight the lowering of standards prompted by Labour when it was elected to power in 2013, ironically on a platform of good governance. In the process, a new Nationalist government will be raising the bar so that shortcomings seen even in former Nationalist administrations will not be repeated but gotten rid of once and for all.
One particular chapter in this document tackles head-on the use and abuse being perpetrated by this administration under the guise of positions of trust. The document states that the system being presently adopted has now arrived to really ridiculous levels, with the Prime Minister stating that even cleaners may fall under this category.
It is evident that the whole system is being manipulated for one scope only: to buy votes and by so doing ascertain a second term in government.
This is absolutely unbecoming for a Prime Minister and his government who, once upon a time, had the envious target of putting Malta in Europe’s top spot.
To counter these and other abuses, measure No. 53 of the document stipulates that positions of trust will be strictly limited and not made use of other than where inevitable as in ministries and parliamentary secretariats. The document also regulates the choices for directors in public entities. As for higher appointments such as ambassadors, they would be scrutinised by a public hearing in Parliament.
More important appointments such as head of the civil service, Police Commissioner, the commander of the Armed Forces, the Central Bank governor and members of bodies governed by the Constitution (Broadcasting Authority, Public Service Commission and the Employment Commission) will be subjected to a two-thirds parliamentary majority.
These and other commitments will be the way forward for a future Nationalist government so as to bury once and for all the excesses of the last three years and any other lingering shortcomings still inherent in our system of governance.
Jean Pierre Debono is Nationalist Party assistant secretary general and a general election candidate.