Bad news for Malta
Malta has dropped a few places in the Corruption Perception Index compiled by Transparency International. We are not too surprised about that.
Malta is now in 54th place, with a score of 51 out of 100 for 2022. We have barely made it beyond the 50% mark. We achieved the same score as Saudi Arabia and Rwanda. It is also an all-time low result for Malta. Just to give an idea, in 2015 Malta had scored 60.
We have dropped five places from the 49th we achieved in 2021, when Malta’s score was 54. Only Croatia, Romania, Bulgaria and Hungary are below us with regard to European Union countries. The European Union average is 64, so we are way below there too.
It is a result that confirms our downward trend. What Transparency International said in its report about Malta expresses “concern for media freedom and political interference in public media and for the fight against organised crime. A state of impunity persists with no convictions in cases of high-level corruption”.
Transparency International goes on to call for “greater independence and resourcing of the Maltese justice system” that “is needed to uphold the rule of law”.
These comments were made before the Prime Minister announced that he had a conversation with a magistrate about the sentencing policy, and his public statement about how he is not comfortable leaving his daughter to walk alone in the streets of Valletta.
We wonder where Malta’s position would have plummeted to if these statements were taken into consideration.
Yet, on the whole, what Transparency International said is not new to us. It has been said over and over again. When Malta spent one year on the grey list of the Financial Action Task Force, it was not for something frivolous. Yes, we were removed after one year, but this does not mean we have resolved all our problems.
Most of our institutions are not functioning properly. Police investigations into alleged illicit behaviour are taking too long, with the risk that some of the offences become timebarred by the time anyone is taken before a court of law. Then again, it takes years for these court procedures to finish, a problem that has been with us for decades and yet which no government has managed to curb, let alone eliminate.
That the government, this week, ploughed on with its idea to have the Standards Commissioner nominated with a simple parliamentary majority – instead of a 2/3 approval – also sends the wrong message. So far, the anti-deadlock mechanism has been restricted to just this position, but it gives the idea that the government is ready to plant it in other institutions that require the support of the Opposition for an appointment to be made.
As things are going, it should not come as a shock if we slip further next year, possibly even below 50%.