Information is the lubricant of democracy. On it depends the smooth running of the democratic process, in which citizens make informed choices about who should govern on their behalf, whether their representatives are truly serving the interests of their electors, and whether they can again be trusted with holding the reins of power.
Transparency is therefore a cornerstone of democratic government and a well-informed voter the best insurance against misgovernment. It follows, then, that transparency – and with it the truth – is one of the first casualties of authoritarian rule. Truth threatens power if it is unpalatable to voters.
It is unfortunate that one is forced to embark on this line of thinking in modern Malta, a member of the European Union where, if not always fully respected in practice, the values of liberal democracy are held up as the ideal towards which to aspire. Instead, the Labour government is accumulating an abysmal record where it comes to transparency and respect for the citizen’s right to know. Over the past three-and-a-half years it has shunned a multitude of requests from the media, often coming from our newspapers, for vital information pertaining to its operations and dealings. Many of them were filed under the Freedom of Information (FOI) Act, which is designed to help journalists hold the government to account but is instead too often being used to obstruct legitimate inquiry.
Notorious among so many never-complied-with requests were for information about the contracts with Shanghai Electric and Electrogas in the energy sector and the multi-million loan guarantee granted to the latter by the government. As we highlighted recently, the public has not been given any explanation for its 18-year commitment to purchase electricity from this consortium.
Electrogas has signalled it has no objection to the contract being made public – so why is the government stalling? Has it made the right decisions with the people’s money? We just don’t have enough information to confirm or dismiss the worst suspicions – because, make no mistake, secrecy begets scepticism and distrust.
As we report today, questions asked by this newspaper about the government’s pledge to buy all the shares in Electrogas, should the European Commission reject a security of supply agreement, have also gone unanswered. It is most ironic that, while initially indicating that the questions would be answered, the government is now delaying its replies because the journalist on the story has submitted an FOI request.
In the health sector, contracts that the government signed with Vitals Global Healthcare on the running of three hospitals were very heavily redacted when finally published following months of speculation. And again, it is not Vitals but the government which is withholding the information. Why? Does the government not want to be held accountable on how or when the contracts’ clauses are implemented? Are there murkier reasons for this degree of concealment?
You see, this is only a natural question to ask when one is kept in the dark on such important matters, which affect the country’s welfare so profoundly. And it is only natural to conclude, as many are doing, that the government prefers to remain under a cloud of suspicion than to reveal... something terribly wrong?
Will Konrad Mizzi and Keith Schembri appear before the European Parliament’s committee looking into the Panama Papers? Blank. What is the name of the company doing their financial audits in the light of the scandal? Blank. What are the real reasons they devised their secretive financial structures in the first place? Complete silence of course.
If this is a government for the people, then the people should know what is going on behind the closed doors of its offices. As a US judge once noted in a case against the Bush administration, “Democracies die behind closed doors.”