Parliament is debating in second reading the Standards in Public Life Bill. This draft law has been gathering dust for well over two years. We had approved of the first reading of this Bill on May 20, 2014. Over two years ago. An ad hoc committee of the House was set up on October 16, 2013 to prepare a report within two months to provide for the appointment of a commissioner and a standing committee with power to investigate breaches of standards, ethics and appropriate behaviour in public life.

That committee, on which I had the privilege, together with Ryan Callus, to represent the Opposition, concluded its mission and presented a Bill to regulate this sensitive matter. Significantly we managed to achieve unanimity.

When the first reading was moved by the Deputy Prime Minister, Louis Grech, I seconded the motion on behalf of the Opposition and we delivered brief speeches to highlight the significance of the event.

More than two years and over 100 Bills later, we are discussing and approving the second reading of this ‘landmark’ piece of legislation.

The government opted to procrastinate.

The Commissioner of Public Standards is not allowed to investigate any allegation regarding public standards before this law comes into force.

Moreover, the government knows that one of the most salient points over which we had reached agreement in the ad hoc committee was with regard to the definition of ‘persons in a public office’. We agreed that the definition would include, apart from members of Parliament, the prime minister, ministers and parliamentary secretaries as well as persons occupying ‘positions of trust’ as would be the case with people who form part of the private secretariats in the different ministries.

Good governance is where the present government fails most

Does it sound familiar?

The Prime Minister’s chief of staff, who was recently deemed not subject to parliamentary scrutiny, will be subject to scrutiny by the Commissioner for Standards in Public Life and by a Standing Committee of Parliament overseeing these standards. The fact that I pointed out as much in the House of Representatives when we debated a motion to affirm Parliament’s right to censure people occupying positions of trust, went unheeded by the government members.

Good governance is where the present government fails most. I have lately been discussing the subject with people having close links to the Labour Party. We talked about whether the government was abiding by its pre-electoral promises. Gone are all promises regarding transparency, accountability, promoting the involvement of all irrespective of one’s political opinion.

What a joke, we could both agree.

I asked a friend about Labour’s electoral programme, in Maltese, what about your Manifest? He responded: “We no longer have any Manifest – for Labour it has unfortunately become in all respects a case of Money First.”

How true. How sad.

That explains the determination to open secret companies in Panama within a day of the new Labour Cabinet being sworn in. It explains why money was not an issue in the frantic search to open bank accounts anywhere in the world for the same secret companies and to persist in the search when banks started flagging the politically-exposed status of the government’s most powerful minister (who was retained in his post) and of the Prime Minister’s chief of staff who did not even have to worry about cosmetic changes of nomenclature.

The new law regarding public standards ultimately owes its origin to a motion tabled by Simon Busuttil on September 30, 2013 to address an already serious situation developing in the country. Nearly three years later, the situation is far worse. Scandals have become the order of the day.

A recent episode epitomises the situation to perfection. During a ‘Listening government’ event, the infamous minister stops listening when asked to tell us what has become of the audit that was supposed to be carried out by an international audit firm to probe his link to the Panama Papers. No, he argued, that was not on the meeting’s agenda!

The government only listens whenever it so suits it. If you happen to have a different point of view, well, the government is not listening.

Francis Zammit Dimech is a Nationalist member of Parliament.