According to the recently published report by the European Greens, corruption is costing the Maltese taxpayers a staggering €725 million annually, amounting to 8.65 per cent of our GDP. This is not the Nationalist Party or the EPP Group to which it is affiliated within the European Parliament that is making this assessment but another political party. One can argue that we are not the worst performers. However, there is no prize for being less corrupt than your neighbour is.
All governments can and should be taking measures to curb and to discourage corruption and to put in place effective legislation that punishes corrupt practices.
Most importantly, government officials should be leading by example if they are to expect citizens to act correctly.
By definition, corruption is the abuse of public or private office for personal gain. It is a criminal offence often punishable by harsh penalties, including prison terms. In 2013 the Maltese Criminal Code was amended to increase penalties in the case of politicians found guilty of corruption, and to remove the applicability of prescription to the offence of corruption when committed by persons holding public office.
This amendment was one of the first pieces of legislation passed by the newly-elected Labour government. The draft Bill was read for the first time on April 10, less than a month after Joseph Muscat was sworn in as Prime Minister.
The Bill was hailed by political commentators and by the media, and was largely seen as being the first concrete step by the new PM to put into action what he had been promising during the 2013 election campaign – a squeaky clean government that would once and for all put an end to corruption, to nepotism and to cronyism. We have been fooled.
What we did not know then was that just 27 days before the first reading of that landmark amendment, a local firm started the procedures to set up secret companies in Panama in the name of at least two senior officials of the new government.
We risk raising a generation where no one is expected to shoulder responsibility for his or her wrongdoing
These companies were to receive, according to documented correspondence, €150,000 a month from another secret company in Dubai. It has now emerged that the owner of this secret company – 17 Black – is none other than one of the directors of the consortium that won the tender to supply us with a brand new power station that is costing the taxpayer hundreds of millions of euros.
It is no surprise that the National Audit report said the selection of the winning company was “riddled with shortcomings” and that the taxpayer is paying through his nose for this deal.
The damaging effects of corruption on countries’ economic development are generally recognised. Corruption hampers economic growth by distorting the allocation of resources, by shunning investors and by reducing public expenditures. The Greens report talks about the Maltese price for corruption being higher than the entire spend on education.
On an individual level, had we divided the amount equally with all the Maltese population, we would all receive €1,671 rather than the €2.33 given by the government through the budget.
Instead, a small clique of ‘privileged’ individuals have decided to divide the amount between themselves, cashing in millions of euros each and making sure that there is surely enough for themselves and for their dear ones.
The economic cost of corruption is probably easy to understand because it is measurable. What is not measurable, and therefore less evident, is the negative social effect that corruption is leaving on the present generation and on future ones.
We have a government minister and the Prime Minister’s right-hand man implicated in damning criminal inquiries involving corruption and money laundering, and yet they stay on. We have a Prime Minister who was elected on an anti-corruption platform and defends these two persons, evidently very close to him, and does not remove them.
We have a minister who fails to produce hotel invoices for €2,666 a night in Monaco and does not have the decency to resign or to suspend himself pending investigations. We have a National Audit Office, which flags serious shortcomings in the awarding of a multimillion euro tender, and the government sees it as a certificate of good governance.
What we are risking is far greater than the €725 million annually. We risk raising a generation where no one is expected to shoulder responsibility for his or her wrongdoing, where accountability does not mean anything and where institutions meant to keep the government in check are diluted to the level of irrelevance.
Francis Zammit Dimech is a Nationalist MEP.
This is a Times of Malta print opinion piece