The criminalisation of government

Corrupt governments abuse their power to create more efficient ways to steal from the state. That’s exactly what Labour’s doing.

“Those cronies are draining hundreds of thousands of public funds into their pockets. But that’s not the only damage done to the public purse. Those cronies facilitate the funnelling of millions more in public funds to other cronies.”

In a brilliant paper called “Grand corruption and government change: an analysis of partisan favoritism in public procurement”, Liz David-Barrett and Mihaly Fazekas argue that corrupt governments set about dismantling democratic institutions in order to gain and maintain control over economic resources such as government contracts. Labour achieved that by placing not only cronies and loyalists at the head of government entities, but loyalists and cronies who have been publicly condemned for their shortcomings, irregularities or incompetence.

We’re talking about people like Frank Fabri, who was removed from Education Permanent secretary after a damning Standards Commissioner report exposed his involvement in Minister Justyne Caruana’s abusive funnelling of public funds to her close friend Danjel Bogdanovic, and his subsequent attempt at cover-up. Labour soon rewarded Fabri with a top job at ITS. Now he’s CEO of the new fish farm agency.

We’re talking about Justyne Caruana who despite being found guilty of abusing her ministerial powers to favour her close friend and having been sacked a second time was rewarded with another job at the Active Aging Ministry, now the Health and Active Aging Ministry.

Silvio Grixti was kept on as consultant at OPM despite the fact that Robert Abela knew about his alleged involvement in the disability benefits scandal.

We’re talking about the shameless Joseph Cuschieri who was kicked out of his MFSA role he was found to have travelled to Las Vegas with Yorgen Fenech on a fully paid trip. Labour rewarded him with another plum job as CEO of Project Green.

We’re talking about Jonathan Cardona who was kicked out of Enemalta after the catastrophic power failures of last summer only to be rewarded with another cushy job as CEO of Community Malta Agency, selling more passports.

We’re talking about Colonel Alex Dalli who after his stint at Corradino was rewarded with another job liasing with his Libyan counterparts as the Home Affairs special representative to Libya for a cool 103,000 euro per year.

We’re talking about Pierre “talITS” Fenech who despite being roundly condemned by an NAO report into Rosianne Cutajar’s phantom job at ITS keeps, not one, but two CEO posts.

We’re talking about Anton Refalo who remains minister despite the inexplicable appearance of a national historical artefact in his poolside garden. Or Ian Borg whose evidence the court found to be unreliable in the unsavoury case of his suspicious acquisition of a piece of land from an elderly gentleman with mental health problems. That’s the land he built his illegal swimming pool on – and yet Borg’s swimming pool still stands, no action taken.

We’re talking about Owen Bonnici, found guilty of breaching human rights. We’re talking about Carmelo Abela, who’s been implicated in a violent bank heist and now rewarded with a top job at Mriehel Industrial Estate. Aaron Farrugia is set to become IMO Ambassador and still retains his parliamentary seat.

All of these know they shouldn’t be in their position. They know they owe everything to the leader who allows them to stay there. In return they give him their loyalty. That ensures the leader has absolute control over economic resources, particularly government contracts. And that control, in turn, helps him and his party stay in power and cements the opportunity to steal more in the future.

Those cronies are draining hundreds of thousands of public funds into their pockets. But that’s not the only damage done to the public purse. Those cronies facilitate the funnelling of millions more in public funds to other cronies. Labour abuses its power to corruptly allocate state resources – land, money, contracts – to its cronies, with the expectation that the “lucky” recipients will pay Labour back - either in campaign funds or possibly blatant personal kickbacks.

David-Barrett and Fazekas argue in their paper that corrupt governments control who gets contracts by changing the law to make it easier to avoid competitive procedures. But Malta’s Labour government has gone far beyond that. Our government doesn’t bother to change the rules or the law - it simply breaks both of them. It awards direct contracts worth millions of euro when public procurement rules demand that anything over 10,000 euro should go to public tender.

When Labour does issue public tenders it’s already decided who will win. When Bonnici brothers, Robert Abela’s business partners got the €600 million waste-toenergy Maghtab plant nobody was surprised. Neither was anybody surprised when HitachiZosen’s claims about the tainted tendering process was rejected by the Public Contracts Review Board.

Nobody was surprised when Vitals got the Hospitals concession. Or when Electogas got the power station contract. Or when DB got the quarter billion SVPR contract.

Labour are real professionals at state capture. Every government entity is stuffed with party loyalists in key positions so Labour can reap the spoils undisturbed. Many of those loyalists are themselves tainted by their own involvement in prior scandals - so Labour can hold them to ransom.

These people shouldn’t be allowed anywhere near the levers of power. This is a veritable rogue’s gallery. By appointing abusers to positions of power, authoritarians send a clear message. The more corrupt people you have in government and government entities the faster the contagion of lawlessness spreads. This all connects to the destruction of the rule of law and the end of ethical standards.

Labour offers pardons to those who committed gross irregularities - Rosianne Cutajar, Justyne Caruana, Joseph Cuschieri, Frank Fabri, Joseph Muscat. Robert Abela is making it clear that their behaviour will not only be tolerated but it will be rewarded. That is nothing short of the systematic criminalisation of government.