A Labour government would allow the public to contest and vote for a boardroom seat in select public entities, party leader Joseph Muscat said yesterday at a press conference in Mgarr, Gozo.
The pilot project would see a boardroom seat in government entities, authorities and regulatory bodies reserved for a member of the public, voted for online by fellow citizens.
Likening the proposal to shareholders voting for their board of directors, Dr Muscat said details still needed to be discussed but suggested utility companies such as Enemalta could be included in the pilot project.
He said the public would be able to vote for prospective board members online. Although voting parameters have not yet been set, Dr Muscat hinted that he was inclined to keep them as open as possible.
Public participation within government boardrooms would accompany a heightened use of social media to solicit policy opinions from members of the public.
“We would publish draft legislation online and encourage citizens to comment on it. And those suggestions could then be taken up by the government or opposition while discussing the law in parliament,” Dr Muscat said. He insisted the proposals were part of a PL vision to open governance up to the general public. “Open governance is not about making token gestures. It’s an attitude that must be reflected across the board,” he said, pointing to PL proposals for MPs’ attendance records to be published online by way of evidence.
He called on politicians to hand back power to individual citizens, insisting this would lead to a “more transparent, accountable government” and saying the PL wanted to “avoid legislation by stealth”.
Dr Muscat acknowledged that the “open governance” proposals would not make legislation any more decipherable to the average citizen, saying that, having read – and failed to understand – copyright treaty ACTA, he had some sympathy for the concern.
The PL leader drew comparisons between his party’s proposals and the Nationalist Party’s failure to mention a Whistleblower Act, party financing law or amendments to political corruption legislation in its electoral programme (see side story).
“When Enemalta’s oil procurement scandal broke, I said I was shocked but not surprised. Now I’m starting to get suspicious,” he said.
Dr Muscat followed up his press conference with a visit to Gozitan farming cooperative Gozitano, where he met with producers and farming industrialists and hinted that PL farming proposals would focus on developing specific agri-business and agri-tourism policies.
When he moved on to the PL stronghold of Sannat, Dr Muscat criticised the Nationalist Party for making no mention of transparency legislation in its electoral programme, warning supporters that “those not proposing have something to hide”.
Dr Muscat said a Whistleblower Act, party financing law and the removal of time-barring in cases of political corruption were all conspicuous by their absence from the PN’s electoral programme, which was published earlier this week. “We need these laws so that no politician tainted by corruption, whoever they are and whenever they were in power, can rest easy,” Dr Muscat said, noting how the government had had plenty of time to introduce the necessary laws but had failed to do so.