The more time passes the more we are seeing that a considerable number of modes of operation practised by the previous legislature were not made in the interest of the people; read the downtrodden taxpayer who, in addition to tax and VAT was plagued by problematically exorbitant energy bills.

PM Joseph Muscat has gone on record saying that the agreement made by the previous incumbents with the private gas suppliers was nothing short of “obscene”. Add this charge to the quixotic methods of buying oil and the rest of the byzantine setup that was revealed just before the election, the scandalous drama of which is still unfolding, and we have before us a scenario which suggests that whoever it was that ran the show in this highly sensitive area cared not a jot for anybody and lined their pockets without the slightest twinge of conscience.

That it all happened under the watch of ex-Minister Austin Gatt, as distinct from Dr Austin Gatt, private citizen, is undeniable. They are both invoking their right to keep silent.

Nothing about Gatt can surprise me after the declaration he made when a number of artists led by the late Fr Peter Serracino Inglott sent a letter to Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi about the deplorable decision regarding the Opera House site.

At the time, the then Minister Gatt roundly declared on national TV that the artists who signed the letter must understand that as we live in a democracy what the government says goes!

Therefore, the hauteur of his response in these hallowed columns last week that he will be stoically resisting any call from the press or whoever to speak about the alleged irregularities comes as no surprise.

It is abundantly clear that the man has been answerable to nobody and nothing for so long that, even now, he claims that as he is a private citizen he is unimpeachable and that all of which was supposed to have happened during his tenure is to be treated as if he, Austin Gatt, private citizen, was not one and the same as Austin Gatt, minister!

So is one of them a reincarnation perhaps? A Doppelganger? The whole thing is inexplicable to anyone trying to employ a modicum of logic to the situation.

The only comparison perhaps is Silvio Berlusconi whose immense wealth has so far managed to keep him out of Regina Coeli! Mind you his age may save him from that yet and I am waiting with bated breath to see the Cavaliere doing community work; organising Colpo Grosso in old folks’ homes perhaps?

All of which was supposed to have happened during his tenure is to be treated as if he, Austin Gatt, private citizen, was not one and the same as Austin Gatt, minister

To get back to sunny Malta where we all live happily in Arcadia, or so we would like to imagine, as August, the month of relaxation and fun, sets in.

In this scenario we tend to put all our troubles on the back burner. Sadly our troubles will not go away and while the Government has the obligation to live up to its electoral expectations it also has the obligation to unravel the alleged irregularities that took place during the previous legislature and if possible put them right.

A tall order you may think. Yes, we are saddled with a leviathan of a white elephant in Valletta the function of which was and always will be debatable.

Had the building been one dedicated to the people – a concert hall, a library, a theatre, a museum – it would have been far more acceptable than to have spent the zillions of euro which quite frankly could have restored Valletta, Floriana, Mdina and the Three Cities quite nicely, on a parliament out of all things.

I sometimes wonder what prompted this idea in the first place. Parliaments are working areas in which the elected representatives of the people enact laws and debate policies. They are not statements of power like Versailles but symbols of the right of the common people to have a voice in the running of their country.

Malta has no empire, no Habsburgs and has not been reunified either for the first or the second time to give some sort of excuse to this gross act of hubris.

There was and still is a far more significant and considerably cheaper location to have a grandiose parliament building and that is the MCC, the Sacra Infermeria, which deserves a far more serious and dignified function that it has.

It overlooks the Grand Harbour, the harbour that changed our history and made us the unique nation that we are. It is the Grand Harbour and not Valletta and not the Three Cities that should be preeminent in our history.

The cities and forts were built with the express purpose of defending it. Sadly there appears to be no way to reverse the damage and we are lumped with it.

The more I think about it the more I feel that many of the decisions of the previous Administration were taken without the PN’s much vaunted transparency but must be relegated to the realm of the aenigmate which will delight Latinists as it means “through a glass darkly” and of course is the origin of the word “enigma”.

Gatt the man and Gatt the ex-minister have so far refused to comment or even attempt to explain themselves to us the people who had put him there.

Both should be hauled before Parliament to answer for their actions at once for, in whatever way one looks at it, the responsibility for Enemalta (not forgetting Arriva) will always ultimately remain theirs, irrespective of whether one of them knew and the other one didn’t know of the irregularities that have shocked us all.