When a serial fraudster who creamed off more than €75,000 in unearned social benefits manages to get off lightly, with nary a national whisper of protest, the underlying message of indifference this conveys ought to be one of deep national concern.
The fact that the fraud has gone practically unnoticed is a clear symptom of a problem that appears to be growing greater by the day. As the two mainstream political parties trade corruption accusations with sheer abandon, the country faces what is perhaps one of the most serious challenges ever, that of arresting the steep slide in governance, ethical and moral standards.
Just as poverty makes a mockery of social justice, the rampant wave of corruption, sleaze and misdemeanours is gnawing at society’s social fabric. When a government makes light of the fact that one of the Cabinet ministers and the Prime Minister’s chief of staff open companies in a tax haven and when this is presented as if it were almost something normal, it is not at all surprising that many get their sense of values blurred.
The party aspiring to get into power at the next election needs to check itself too, if it wants to be credible. While, on paper, the Nationalists under Simon Busuttil are showing all the right signs that they well know the direction they want the country to take in so far as standards are concerned, there are times when, surprisingly, they fall short of expectations.
Take the case, for example, of one of its MPs, Toni Bezzina, whose wife applied for the “rehabilitation and restoration” of an existing almond grove and wartime living quarters and for the building of a swimming pool and new access in outside development zone in Rabat. It was only after the Labour Party published the story in its newspaper that Mr Bezzina decided to withdraw the application because, he said, he placed political principles before other considerations.
Why did he not think of this before the application was filed?
When, quite justifiably, the Nationalist Party raised an outcry over the government’s unwise grant of land to Lebanese investors in a pristine stretch of coastline at Żonqor, is it not hugely incongruous for it to treat Mr Bezzina with kid gloves over this case?
To make the incongruity even more glaring, the MP is said to have co-authored the party’s new environment policy. Unless the MP is booted out, the party stands to be accused of having double standards.
It is rich for Labour to cry foul when it is wallowing in allegations of corruption, sleaze and outright nepotism the like of which is only seen in places run by tin-pot dictators. Its record in this regard is already so badly tainted that it is greatly overshadowing all the good work it is doing in other areas.
Agency reports about the good state of the Maltese economy do not go into this steep slide in standards.
The more the government defends the indefensible, the more it paints itself into a corner.
Attempting to legitimise abnormality in governing standards through, for example, stripping a minister of his portfolio but retaining him as a Cabinet member and allowing him to still handle almost all the same things he was responsible for before, is the height of absurdity. It is also sheer political arrogance.
Is it any wonder then that the story about the fraudster who got off so lightly did not get the attention it should have received in a normal democratic environment?