How corruption is hitting Malta
Two reports that were published by international agencies last week put Malta to shame. Or, perhaps we should rephrase that – the reports put Joseph Muscat’s government to shame.
The problem is that Malta will continue to suffer the consequences of Joseph Muscat’s inabilities long after his resignation from Prime Minister. The country is still being hit hard while he is enjoying his free time, other than trying to interfere in situations he should keep away from – such as the Steward deal with his government (when he was PM) on the privatisation of three public hospitals and the idea to help the Malta Football Association in its project to have a team of Maltese nationals playing in the Italian third division.
Malta is no longer seen as a country to be trusted, where the institutions work and where the rule of law functions properly. It is now seen as a dodgy nation, one in which allegations of corruption involving the highest levels were ignored, and one with a reputation that has plummeted to unprecedented depths.
The Labour Party and its trolls try to pin the blame on the Nationalists. They say that PN exponents do their best to put Malta in bad light on the international stage. They say that it is only because of the PN’s insistence that delegations from the European Parliament come over to investigate what is happening here. They conveniently forget that Malta comes under the spotlight for the wrong reasons – and there have been many such occasions since 2013 – only because of the Labour government’s own inaction and deficiencies.
And so we first had The Economist Intelligence Unit’s Democracy Index labelling Malta as a “flawed democracy” for the first time ever. Malta is one of only five European Union member states to fall in this category; the others are Italy, Cyprus, Greece and Belgium.
And, a day later, we had Transparency International warning that corruption is “undermining” and “weakening democracy” in Malta. “Significant lack of political integrity contributes to politicians and others hiding illicit wealth behind secret companies,” the report said, with Malta dropping to 50th place in the rankings.
The reports deal with what happened in 2019, and the events that shook the country in the last six weeks of the year, no doubt, contributed to the scathing remarks that both institutions made in their analysis about Malta. In a nutshell, they speak about the situation in Malta under Joseph Muscat. That is the legacy he left us with.
One silver lining in this cloud of mistrust in Malta is the way that new Prime Minister Robert Abela reacted to the Economist and Transparency International reports. He did not dismiss them as hogwash. He did not blame the Nationalist Party. He did not say PN exponents were putting Malta in bad light.
Instead, he acknowledged that the reports are not something to be proud of. And he said that the government, now under his leadership, will be striving to reverse the trend. He said that he will work hard to put Malta back in the list of countries enjoying “full democracy”. He said that steps had already been taken in the first few days of his administration and that more will follow.
That “more will follow” is a good sign. What has been done so far are important steps forward, but now we need Abela to push for a thorough investigation into all that took place under his predecessor. It is only when this happens that Malta will really be on the road to recovery.