The front page of last Sunday’s Malta Today presented a damning collage, albeit unintentionally. A three-column photo at the top of the page showed an upbeat Prime Minister waving to party supporters. The heading informed us that the PM had fired the engines of the electoral campaign.
Underneath the photo there was a different report introduced by a three-column heading spread on two lines: ‘Under Labour, corruption concern at all-time high’.
This is definitively not a piece of news to be upbeat about. But worse news followed. The paper told us that the record figure of 30 per cent showed concern at corruption and this represented a 12-point increase over the figures for last October. In actual fact, the number of people showing concern about corruption was higher than 30 per cent. The Panama Papers, a mega corruption scandal, was the concern of 4.5 per cent. This means that, in actual fact, the concern about corruption is close to 35 per cent.
Malta Today’s survey is not the only study which showed such concerns. Last January, Transparency International published its Corruption Perception Index for 2016. In one year Malta slipped 10 places and got the worst result even since it started to be monitored by Transparency International in 2004. We are worse than St Lucia, Barbados and Botswana!
A number of reflections are called for.
In my commentary ‘Abraham, Moses on the Panama Papers’ (May 29, 2016), I attacked the cynical argument that people care more for ‘bread’ than for ‘good governance’. I used Abraham Maslow’s hierarchy of needs to argue that there is an intrinsic link between ‘bread’ (a need on the lower end of Maslow’s scale) and good governance/transparency (a need on the higher end of the scale). The lower rungs of Maslow’s ladder not only lead to but also progressively morph into the higher rungs.
When people’s lower needs are satisfied they strive to join the race to the top and despise the race to the bottom. And if, when they still need bread, they are ready to bow in front of the political masters to get some favours, they don’t want their children to be in the same subservient position.
The above quoted surveys show that once the economy is working well people yearn for something better: good governance and transparency. They yearn for a better quality of life. This, I believe, is also shown with people’s concern in the survey about traffic and parking. This is by far the major concern, topping the list by 42 points. Traffic and parking problems lead to deterioration of our quality of life. We waste time, our timetables go haywire and road rage sets in. This is why it irks people so much.
There are so many different voices accusing the government of corruption that one cannot say that this is just perception or that this is the fault of the Opposition
The point I am making is a very simple one. The strengthening of the economy is a feather in the government’s cap and a good electoral card as well. But the strengthening of the economy can become like a Trojan horse. The more people’s material needs are satisfied the more they yearn for higher needs. Government then becomes a loser as it is clear that more and more people believe that it is failing miserably to satisfy these needs.
On the face of it the score of purely material needs is much lower than the score of the other needs. Consequently, one could tend to ignore them. But when one adds together concerns mentioned in this regard – cost of living, low income and the economy – the end result is 17 per cent. This is not a mean statistic. Does this mean that close to one-fifth of the population do not feel that they are getting their rightful piece of the country’s economic cake? If this is the case, then the more government boasts of a good economy, the more salt it will be pouring into these people’s wounds.
Unfair distribution of wealth also riles those who have a fair piece of the economic cake. They ask why a prime piece of property estimated to cost €212 million was given to Silvio Debono’s db group for just €15 million. Government never showed such largesse in their regard, they say. People, quite naturally, ask questions.
But people also give answers. The results of the surveys published indicate very clearly what these answers are. Government is doing its utmost to divert people’s attention and focus. But when all is said and done people are faced with the harsh truth that they were short-changed close to €200 million for the benefit of just one man.
The surveys of Malta Today and of Transparency International are worrying indeed. But when taken together with the results of another survey published by The Malta Independent in November of last year, the whole situation turns out to be more upsetting. According to that survey the majority of those who expressed a ‘yes’ or ‘no’ answer believe that the government is corrupt. Even 22 per cent of Labour voters are of the same opinion. These three studies show that there is convergence that the government failed on good governance, on transparency and on clean government.
There are so many different voices accusing the government of corruption that one cannot say that this is just perception or that this is the fault of the Opposition. I think that no one believes that the Partit Nazzjonalista is a better communicator and propagandist than the Partit Laburista and the government.
So it is significant that in spite of the campaign of the then Labour opposition against Gonzi’s government, the amount of people that expressed this concern, according to the surveys of Malta Today, never surpassed the three per cent mark between 2008 and 2013. Today it has now hit the 35 per cent mark – concern on corruption and the Panama Papers scandal.
This is an astronomical jump that the country could have done without.
joseph.borg@um.edu.mt