It would seem that Joseph Muscat’s government is running away withthe idea that, once the party hasonce again won a general election with a landslide majority, the national issue of corruption is not a fraction as important as the Nationalist Party made it out to be during the election campaign.
Politically, the issue may not have been regarded as all that important to the grassroots, or at least not important enough to warrant a change of administration. But it is wrong for Labour to think it will be relegated to the back burner. It will not, as the thousands who voted against corruption will never come to accept that, once the economy is doing well, it is all right then to close both eyes to sleaze and wrongdoing.
It is therefore all the more amazing and greatly disconcerting to find Edward Scicluna, a minister normally regarded as one of the moderates in Muscat’s Cabinet, to attempt to deflect – as the Prime Minister constantly does – national attention away from the kernel of the issue, which is that wrongdoing is never acceptable.
Rather than showing concern over the police’s inaction over money laundering claims involving top government aides, as revealed in Financial Intelligence Analysis Unit reports, the minister appears to have been more worried about who leaked the reports and about the motive behind the leaks than about the alleged wrongdoing.
As minister of the government, Prof. Scicluna should first be concerned about the reasons for the police’s manifest failure in investigating, without fear or favour, the FIAU reports, now subject of magisterial inquiries.
Harder to understand is the minister’s astonishing remark that whoever leaked the reports should not be treated as whistleblower but as someone who had done a disservice. Disservice to whom exactly? Whether those who leaked the reports are politically motivated or not is of interest only to the party to whom the minister belongs, certainly not to the country. When the FIAU flagged suspicions of money laundering, the first duty of the police was to investigate. The fact that it did not is scandalous.
As it was rightly pointed out to the minister, maybe the reports were leaked precisely because of the police’s failure to act. As guardian of Malta’s finances, Prof. Scicluna’s major worry ought to have been over the opening of offshore companies in a tax haven by a minister of the State and by the Prime Minister’s chief of staff.
Even though the Nationalist Party is still in the throes of licking its wounds, to its credit it is not letting Labour downplay the significance of the issue. As it has rightly remarked in a reaction to the minister’s comments, an election does not erase the fact that, in more than one report, the FIAU found reasonable suspicion of money laundering.
Up to now, corruption claims may not win elections, but they do not enhance a governing party’s status either. Besides the thousands who voted for higher governing standards, even hardline Labour opinion makers are now beginning to show increasing concern over the state of the party in this respect and would wish to see Labour getting back on the right, moral track. Hopefully, these would help exert, over time, the right moral influence in the right places.