Twenty-five years ago Italy saw the start of the Mani Pulite investigation that probed a nationwide sub-culture of State tenders feeding kick-backs to political parties. It is estimated that in the 1980s the annual value of these bribes reached $4 billion.
The seismic effects of Mani Pulite ultimately led to the demise of Italy’s ‘First Republic’, the disappearance of many political parties and the rise of populist and far-right parties such as the Lega Nord.
The ITS land transfer/Silvio Debono PN ‘donation’ affair has convinced me that Malta needs its own Mani Pulite.
The land transfer is the latest in a long line of ‘odd’ deals by this government that, at the very least, defy economic or environmental logic. Café Premier; the Gaffarena half-house; Azerbaijani oil; the Chinese power station; the Mrieħel skyscrapers – the list goes on.
It just does not add up. There is hardly need for the rumours making the rounds that many of these deals were already done and dusted before the 2013 election. The present government’s blasé attitude at the evidence and legitimate suspicions, its gelding of the police force and the civil service, its contempt for truth, due process and the free media are sufficient indicators of bad faith.
The PN ‘donation’ affair is different because, however the funds were received and recorded, Simon Busuttil violated the cardinal rule of back-handed party financing – he bit the hand that sought to tame him by feeding him.
At that point the real intention behind Debono’s ‘donation’ was revealed: it was no donation, but a leash. And Debono was outraged that this particular dog did not obey its master as the others had.
Lawrence Cutajar is squelching in his own special quagmire of incompetence
Of course, Debono has illustrious ancestors, going back to Alfred Sant’s barunijiet and beyond. In the Maltese system the money-men (always men…) exploit two main weak spots: the greed of poorly-paid public servants and the vulnerability of political parties to donations. The former becomes a gaping hole when said servants perceive their political masters to be less than virginal, and especially when the parties’ vulnerability is shorn of ethics and leads to deal-making marathons to secure political power at all costs.
Unfortunately, in our system we do not have independent State prosecutors as with Italy or the US who can conduct a Mani Pulite-like investigation. It is the police force that has the power and responsibility to do so. And with the present set of bobby boobies, we might as well wait for the Dwejra Window to reconstruct itself.
There is no law that can really change politicians’ moral compass – only the power of the vote and the bitter lesson of electoral defeat can do that.
But there is something we can do about party financing. It is high time that we consider reasonable State funding of political parties as a national investment against corruption, a one-fingered salute at the cupidity of the money-men.
It is this, not having full-time politicians, that is the better investment. Parliamentary remuneration will never match the income of successful mature professionals and business people. And venal politicians will never be content with a salary, however handsome.
Parties that are freed from the tightening noose of the money-men’s leash are better able to field candidates with a vocation for public service. They are better able to offer value-based rather than consumer-based policies and politics.
They are better able to ensure good governance once in power. This includes empowering State institutions to conduct the Maltese version of Mani Pulite and vigorously sniff out and sever the links between the money-men and politics, in the past and for the future.
Only then will this country by truly governed not by back-room deals, but by the rule of law.
The Police (C)omission-er…
The reputation of the Police Force is receding faster than the chin of its current hapless commissioner, Lawrence Cutajar.
Of course, most of his recent Labour-appointed predecessors were not exactly pillars of probity. Peter Paul Zammit and Ray Zammit were both made to resign in short order due to gross professional misconduct.
But Cutajar is squelching in his own special quagmire of incompetence. Faced with rising national and international outrage at police inaction on strong suspicions of preparations, at the very least, for money-laundering in the Panama affair, what was his overriding concern? To take his well-deserved holiday and go watch his beloved Inter.
And what about his tragi-comic blustering when asked to explain his inaction on Panama? He tried to use the law as a fig-leaf for his unwillingness to explain the unexplainable, could not even quote it correctly, then blamed his cock-up on the media.
Is this the man who is meant to have the will, judgement and plain balls to handle Malta’s greatest case of suspected financial malpractice and corruption since Independence? Cutajar couldn’t find the way out of his zipper with a map and a compass.
Don’t you just pity this government’s extraordinary run of bad luck in persistently picking the wrong’uns for the crucial role of Police Commissioner?