There would seem to be some clogged wheels in the workings of the government these days, especially in areas requiring overall surveillance in matters involving tenders.
For how can one intelligently explain the attitude adopted by the Finance Ministry over the corruption claims made by the Labour Party in the bidding for the privatisation of the super yacht facility? On the other hand, it is clearly obvious that the PL's main interest lies in making political mileage when, if it really wanted to win credibility, it could have played its part by referring the matter to the police, as the Prime Minister remarked so well the other day.
The people are getting increasingly tired of the two parties' antics, as shown by the general disapproval of the way they behaved in Parliament recently. They expect both sides to act responsibly all the time, more so over allegations of corruption. No Administration can ever insulate itself completely from claims of corruption and the PL can hardly claim it has not experienced any such allegations in its time. Times have changed and there is today increasing political sensitivity to claims of corruption, one reason why action has to be taken immediately hints of corruption, or fraud, are brought up.
As experience has shown over the years, Malta has not been free of such claims, with the most notable cases rocking the judicature and the VAT Department. Particularly strange in the latest case, that over the super yacht facility, is the time lag - eight months - between the first reporting of the claim and its reference to the police. When an official from the Office of the Prime Minister was told of a claim that someone, from among the people involved in the bids, had asked for money in return for favourable treatment in the tendering process, he alerted the Finance Ministry.
The ministry duly investigated the claim and, it was explained later, although the probe yielded no results, the call for tenders was cancelled. The Finance Minister had been made aware of the claim, so much so that when the case was made public by the Labour leader, he said he had known about the allegations for months. When asked why he had not called for an investigation as soon as he was made aware of the claim, he said it was a case of hearsay, with someone making the allegation and someone else denying it.
This may have been so but, once the call for tenders was cancelled, the ministry must have surely felt uneasy letting the process go on as if nothing had happened.
But why was the Prime Minister not informed of all this? This is the biggest mystery in this case, more so when it was his office that was first informed of the claim. When the Prime Minister learned of the case, he asked the Police Commissioner to investigate.
On his part, Labour leader Joseph Muscat said the information had been brought to his attention a long time after the government was made aware of it. When exactly? The day before he made it public?
It is all very well for Dr Muscat to come out with a set of proposals to fight corruption but he has to start helping in the effort to stamp it out right now. While the wheels of government do need to be well oiled, Labour does have to play its part too.