Ga the tip of the iceberg

two main issues were exposed: that while MPs work part time, issues of conflicts of interest, impartiality and acting in the interest of the country is called into question. The second exposes the way Malta’s system works whereby political parties can only survive on donations, which means that the de facto rulers of Malta are the big businessmen with deep pockets.

Like a bolt out of the blue, db Group asked the PN to return donations after the Leader of the Opposition chose to refer to the contract between db and the government over the transfer of former Institute of Tourism Studies land at St George’s Bay by the latter to the former, to the Auditor General. The Opposition took umbrage with the valuation of the land, carried out by Deloitte, and presented to the public as a package of €60 million. After the contract was signed (without parliamentary scrutiny) and made public, it was discovered that db Group would have to pay €15 million (of which only €5 million are to be paid up front), while the remainder €45 million would be collected through the redemption of ground rent. Never has a public land transfer been presented in this manner with redemption of ground rent added to the total sum to curry favour for the whole package.

In the meantime and only after the controversy broke out, Mr Debono of db Group has claimed he gave donations to the PN that far exceed the €25,000 limit allowed by the party financing law. The PN say that the €70,000 quoted by db Group as donations were in fact transactions of a commercial nature between the influential businessman and the PN’s media entity Media Link. Both failed to divulge details of the commercial transactions, with Joseph Muscat saying that the PN issued fraudulent invoices. However, at the same time, he has failed to recognize that the same people with whom he signed the transfer of public land for €15 million accepted those ‘fraudulent invoices’ from the PN and posted them in their accounts, benefiting from tax rebates over expenses as per normal procedure. If this is true, and if the party financing law was breached by both the PN and db Group, then why is the government doing business with these people, electors should ask.

More so, while the PN was drafting and publishing its good governance report, it was in the midst of this arrangement with the db Group and Silvio Debono, should the allegations hold true. The Opposition leader claims he inherited a party that was in financial ruin and that he intends “cleaning the mess”, another solid argument for the state funding of mainstream parties.

PL and end results

Many are wondering how the PN will recover from this mess, while the PL is dutifully organising a press conference each day in order to pressure the Opposition into publishing the allegedly false invoices. This newsroom has asked Dr Busuttil for an itemised list of services rendered by the two sides. His response is that db Group may do so if it wishes, but maintains that a commercial relationship should remain private, and he would not be the one to break the silence. Asked to provide a similar list, PL leader Joseph Muscat promised that it would be published. However, one has to see whether the promised lists would offer the level of detail expected to be able to see if big business is using the commercial entities of the political parties to sustain their operation in exchange for friendly measures to facilitate controversial business deals.

The PL’s short environmental track record has made the public question if Dr Muscat is too business-friendly, in the sense that development projects attracting millions of euro of investment is definitely preferred to preserving ODZ land (think of the Zonqor-University of America saga). In addition, many media reports have highlighted that in 2016 there were 736 granted applications to develop on ODZ property. This is the highest since 2007 when the PN controversially played with boundary lines which gave up 1.2 million square metres of ODZ for development. The increase in 2016 is mainly attributed to this PL government relaxing the rules for development in rural areas.

In the face of this criticism however, the PL proudly highlights the strong economic achievements it has managed to attain, understanding that what people care most about in the end is their short-term livelihood.