Where's everybody

The Malta Independent

Where`s everybody`

Things are happening around us which if they were to happen in a real democracy they would bring the government on its knees and restore to the electorate the right to choose again. But in our pseudo democracy it is the solitary voice of the opposition which keeps a tab on the government.` The supposedly independent press persistently avoids issues which could embarrass the government.

Serious accusations are being levelled at the government which if confirmed would bring into question the validity of its electoral mandate. We all remember the fuss made on the supposed scandal of the Lay Lay acquisition by the Housing Authority three weeks before the election.

For a government just in office 21 months on a pledge of being whiter than white, such an alleged scandal in the final phase of a premature electoral campaign was damaging beyond repair. It practically turned the electoral tables against the Labour Party.

Now it is alleged with a substantial degree of corroborating evidence that this was nothing but a Housingate.` It was a set up from internal informers, disloyal to the government and to the people to an extent that they fabricate and leak stories which in the sensitive pre-election time play a significant role in deciding the people`s choice.

The more damning piece evidence is government`s refusal to conduct an investigation, the obstinate protection of, indeed the reward to,` the alleged perpetrator of the malpractice, the stammering excuses of the Housing Authority chairperson who in the face of the corroborating evidence insists on solid evidence on a silver platter before conducting an investigation. She should indeed know better.

But I am not in the least surprised by what happened. I am sure that there was another scheme being concocted on me when I was Chairman of Mid-Med in the same run up period to last elections. In this second failed fabrication` there was the involvement of nothing less than the National Audit Office(NAO), an organisation whose current officers have lost all my esteem and respect since then.

Just as the Lay Lay supposed scandal was making the headlines the NAO sent me as Chairman of the Bank their report which I had specifically asked for about the value for money and integrity of the Bank`s proposal to purchase property next to the Operations Centre of the Bank formerly known as Centru Ruzar Briffa.

It` mysteriously took the NAO 8 whole months to issue this report which could have been wrapped up in a couple of months. All that was necessary was for the NAO to appoint their own selected architect(s) to establish whether the negotiated price was fair in line with market conditions and whether the selection process was integral and` transparent.

In spite of` a panel of three architects confirming the Bank`s choice and the negotiated price as fair and proper,` the NAO stretched the exercise beyond its intended brief and chose to challenge` the Bank`s strategy in transferring its back office operations to Qormi. It proposed a fresh much higher` investment` in a more up-market location.` The issue of the report on the 18th August 1998, just three weeks before the election was surely meant to re-inforce the Lay Lay scandal.

I had the good sense of keeping the report locked in a drawer until the election campaign was over so any leak could easily be pinned on the NAO. I am sure that it did not leak not because the NAO wished it to be so but they had no option. Their wish was pretty evident in the issue of the report in the middle of an election campaign!

After the election it is well-known how much fuss was made of the supposed scandal on a property deal which never happened as it was not approved as intended a priori by the NAO.` Time has a harsh habit of proving issues.` Public organisations these days buy property next door at premium prices and don`t even think of sending the process for prior verification by the NAO.` Nobody screams scandal,` nobody suspects anything anymore.

Where`s everybody`