Pippo Psaila and Fr Hilary Tagliaferro are demanding the immediate introduction of a Whistleblower's Act to help weed out corruption in football (June 8). The two gentlemen state that the lack of such an Act is encouraging people to adopt an attitude of "omertà" (code of silence).

I fully agree with Mr Psaila and Fr Hilary. Probably, what the two gentlemen are asking for is something more akin to Britain's "Queen's Evidence" or Italian Legge Pentiti. This has already been provided for in our Constitution, although as the Żeppi l-Ħafi cases demonstrate, it needs some fine-tuning to weed out action which is more motivated by party politics than an unequivocal quest for justice.

But back to the real whistleblowing: Unfortunately, the Maltese Parliament has already shown that it is not willing to encourage full transparency in things Maltese. The recent approval of a "freedom of information" Act, long championed by Alternattiva Demokratika together with the "Whistleblower Act", has shown that the text was watered down by Parliament to such an extent as to make it basically ineffective. Moreover, the pattern is now known to all: if anybody speaks up about corruption in Malta, the ensuing board of inquiry appointed by the authorities will invariably and consistently fault some minor employee... with all politicians being cleared of any responsibility.

The lack of a real commitment by Parliament and the authorities to real and full transparency is indeed pushing more and more Maltese to hide themselves behind the scared and scary silence of omertà.