PN lists proposals for better governance, cleaner administration

Nationalist Party leader Adrian Delia yesterday afternoon listed measures which, he said, would lead to better governance and a cleaner administration.

In a message on the party’s media, Delia said that Malta needs to emerge from the crisis it is engulfed in, first by ensuring that justice prevails in the case of Daphne Caruana Galizia’s murder, and secondly by removing anyone from the government and its administration who has promoted corruption or failed to carry out their in duties.

“The country needs to be built on righteousness, legitimacy and measures that clean politics,” he said.

Delia said that Prime Minister Joseph Muscat must not wait until January to resign, but should go now. “He is compromised from head to toe,” Delia said. Until a few days ago, he was still being given the benefit of the doubt, but after the developments of the past days “any vote of confidence in Muscat is a sign of complicity in the corruption that has taken place under his watch and with his blessing.”

Delia said that all this is a blow to Malta’s reputation, without which there can be no trust.

He said the PN is looking into the reasons why Malta is going through such a crisis, and part of the blame must be shouldered by the PN. While a lot of good was done in 25 years of PN governments, “we never anticipated that someone would come after us and manipulate the country’s institutions to such an extent,” he said.

He said the PN is ready to help set the country back on the right course and it has drawn up a list of proposals that will lead to better governance and a cleaner administration.

The PN proposes that a section within the Permanent Commission Against Corruption should be set up to investigate cases of corruption and take them to court when necessary. The PN is also proposing an immediate stop to the Individual Investor Programme.

The PN suggests the creation of a fund to financially help independent media houses that cover national news. The way these funds are distributed should ensure that media houses will continue to be absolutely independent of the government of the day.

Another proposal is that the Broadcasting Authority chairman should be selected by a two-thirds majority, and public broadcasting should become totally autonomous from the state,

Political parties should be financially aided by the state to fulfil their functions without them being dependent on others, so as to avoid any conflicts of interest.

MPs should work on a full-time basis and serve the country without being dependent on the government of the day. This will enable them to dedicate their time to research, analysis, consultations and reaching out to constituents, something they are unable to do as part-timers.

All backbenchers should lose any job given by the government, as the Commissioner for Standards has already suggested.

The PN is also proposing that the chief justice should be elected by a two-thirds parliamentary majority, and that the committee for the selection of judges be made up of four members of the judiciary, the Ombudsman, the National Auditor and the Standards Commissioner. This committee should then issue calls for applications and choose three names to submit to the Cabinet, which must decide from the names provided.