‘Kitchen cabinet’: Useless crying about it now

Finance Minister Edward Scicluna this week shed more light on the way Joseph Muscat’s government was run, how major decisions were taken not by the Cabinet but by a ‘kitchen cabinet’ of lawyers and advisors, and how controversial deals were pushed through without the approval of the competent ministries.

Scicluna might have hoped that, by finally revealing all, he would win the people’s sympathy, but the truth is that he has thrown himself under the bus and has shown how spineless he was, along with all of his Cabinet colleagues.

While the revelations in themselves are surreal and confirm the suspicions we have had for the past seven years on the Muscat government, one cannot but ask why Scicluna chose to remain as part of that corrupt administration, having even voted to keep people like Konrad Mizzi in place.

What Scicluna said this week is too little too late and does not absolve him of the wrongdoings of the previous administration. The technocrat, chosen by Muscat in 2013 as one of his star candidates, should have resigned in the face of what was happening … he should never have accepted being completely sidelined on projects and deals such as the Electrogas power station and the Vitals hospitals deal.

He said, in a sitting of the Daphne public inquiry this week, that the government was run by a kitchen cabinet that included Keith Schembri lawyers and consultants from top legal firms, but insisted he was not part of the inner core.

He said the VGH deal was not discussed in Cabinet but he would have advised against it, if acting in a private capacity.

Projects Malta - the body set up within Konrad Mizzi’s Ministry without Portfolio to handle the country’s major projects such as the power station - was not transparent, and acquiring data from them took a lot of effort, Scicluna said.

Sciclina said “everybody” was disappointed by Muscat’s decision to retain Konrad Mizzi after the Panama Papers scandal. He further added that the entire Cabinet was of the opinion that Mizzi should go.

To his credit, Scicluna has proved to be one of the best Finance Ministers in recent years and has had to deal with major crises, including the COVID-19 pandemic. Thanks to strong public finances, Malta it was able to spend millions on healthcare and on schemes to help businesses and protect jobs.

But this does not erase the fact that he chose to remain part of an administration which was de facto being led by shady individuals which bent or skipped around the rules to push through absurd contracts that the taxpayer will suffer from for decades to come.

A few weeks back, another Cabinet minister, Evarist Bartolo, also told the inquiry board about the ‘shadow government’ led by Keith Schembri.

MEP Alfred Sant too has often criticised government decisions, but the fact is that none of the above resigned in protest at what was happening.

They all decided to stay on in the administration run by Schembri’s ‘kitchen cabinet.’

Nothing and no one was keeping them there. Any self-respecting individual would have resigned and refused to be part of that dirty game, but they stayed.

Not only did they stay, but they all voted for Konrad Mizzi to stay when the PN Opposition moved a vote of no confidence against him in 2016.

It was only in January, when

Mizzi resigned from government and was forcibly kicked out of the Labour Party that many of his former colleagues finally found the courage to speak up. But by then it was already too late.

Politicians in many (properly) democratic countries resign over much less. Hell, in Japan politicians have been known to resign over a late train departure, but in Malta politicians feel comfortable staying on in an administration that they themselves later describe as corrupt (although, not in so many words).

Why is it so hard for Maltese politicians to do the right and honourable thing and show their disapproval by stepping down and declaring they no longer want to form part of the circus?

Daily cryptic Facebook posts will not cut it. Not even a late apology will do. By our yardstick, if you choose to be part of a rotten clique, then you are guilty by association.