Your editorial of April 27 accurately captured the essence of my earlier statement to The Sunday Times of Malta, as well as the short history and contributions of the Today Public Policy Institute since its inception.
I should add that the board’s decision for dissolution of the think tank was taken after considerable consideration and with much disappointment.
This more so following a considerable investment of time on the part of several board members in the preceding months in the design of a governance scorecard and the development of a methodology for its implementation, which we were ready to launch this month.
I am prepared to make this body of work available to any individual or organisation which is prepared to run forward with it. The same applies to all intellectual property created by the institute, which your editorial referred to.
The board was also in the throes of rebranding the think tank and re-constituting it in line with the provisions of the Voluntary Organisations Act.
The TPPI was made up of a board consisting of 15 members and a recently established, 20-member College of Fellows, all of whom were volunteers.
At this stage in its evolution and in an effort to make it sustainable and render it more effective, there was a need for some very limited, professional, full-time support to coordinate its activities and to provide the necessary research, administrative and critical communications support.
I wish I could name these organisations as a model to others; regrettably I feel constrained from doing so, lest they be targeted for their generous, noble act
It is for this reason that we embarked on our fundraising endeavour. Long established think tanks in other countries are variously funded by sector interests or philanthropic bodies or persons. In the course of our fundraising campaign, we were able to secure sponsorship pledges from three organisations, for which we were enormously grateful, but this was not sufficient to cover the estimated operating costs.
I wish I could name these organisations as a model to others; regrettably I feel constrained from doing so, lest they be targeted for their generous and noble act.
But the more critical dilemma the board was facing is that we had to make this decision at a most challenging time in our history of self-governance in the face of the gradual of erosion of our democracy, serious questions about the rule of law, the parlous state of our public institutions, the ramped-up degradation of our environment, the brazen lack of fairness, transparency and accountability in the conduct of government business, the emasculation of our local councils and with our reputation in tatters internationally.
If ever there was a time for informed and reasoned policy analysis and advice to address the country’s intractable policy issues as outlined in our paper of last May, which you referenced, this was it.
However, sadly this was not to be.
My sole purpose in writing this is to convey that the shutting down of TPPI is not a decision that the board came to lightly, but one dictated by a complex set of circumstances. Key among these, largely due to the prevailing climate of fear, was the lack of corporate financial support that we were seeking.
This was hugely disappointing and leaves me as the person at the helm at the time with a great sense of failure.
It is my earnest hope that notwithstanding this experience there will be a flowering of initiatives that will bravely pick up where TPPI left off.
Malta desperately needs this.
Joseph Tabone was head of the Today Public Policy Institute.