Our Right to Know - Government`s Duty to Inform

The Malta Independent on Sunday
11th July 2004
 
The resignation of a senior Minister cannot be considered as a simple internal party affair. It is a matter of national concern. The government has a duty to inform and the electorate, in a truly working democracy, has a right to know what led to the resignation when it is clear that is not a case of a simple resignation ‘for personal reasons’.

The secrecy with which the resignation of former minister John Dalli is being shrouded is excessive and obsessive. Former US Secretary of State William Rogers once advised that “the public should view excessive secrecy among government officials as parents view sudden quiet where youngsters are playing. It is a sign of trouble”.

Woodrow Wilson has said that “it is a fair presumption that secrecy means impropriety”. In this contribution I have no wish to scandalmonger. Rather I wish to spray anti-scandal disinfectant called light and transparency.

Anybody who believes that John Dalli resigned because of the allegations of impropriety related to the Iranian shipping contract or the air-tickets saga should probably restart at kinder-garden. Mr Dalli has weathered much more serious allegations in the past. Compared to the allegations made against him in the case of the Daewoo scandal and the fire-sale of Mid-Med Bank, the recent revelations were child’s play.

These far more serious allegations not only did not even give rise to the slightest consideration of resignation, but the whole government just disregarded all claims for independent investigations. And I have no doubt in my mind that both cases of Daewoo and the sale of Mid-Med Bank, merited, still merit, full independent investigations to establish once and for all why things happened the way they happened and who, if anybody, has to be held accountable for the losses that the nation incurred in both cases, running into large millions of liri, which make the IRISL and the ticketing issue look like chicken stuff.

This time things have been made to work differently. And I had predicted this in my article in this paper of 4 weeks ago, before the results of the EP elections were known, when I had written:

“But on the basis of their campaign the PN certainly do not deserve the third seat. They had one of their worst campaigns ever. It was half-hearted, relying solely on the media without the usual capillarity at grass roots level to stimulate enthusiasm and get out the vote.

But even their media management lacked the near perfection typical of when EFA was in charge and RCC used to manage the media. The strange things that happened are too evident to go unnoticed. Was it co-incidental that the Malta Employers Association presented a report to the MCESD proposing ‘rundown’ of 12000 heads from central government employment? Or was it orchestrated by factions more interested in foisting a bad show on the new PM on his first electoral outing rather in seeing their Party do well? ……. Was it co-incidental that in the week prior to the elections a senior minister threatened in parliament to close down the shipyards if they can’t be run in black? Was it co-incidental that in the two weeks before the election the Times showed untypical interest in exposing the alleged scandal involving the Foreign Affairs Ministers using his weighty influence with foreign government organisations to favour family business interests?

My conclusion is the calm that EFA used to impose whilst the Party focuses on the electoral objective was this time completely missing and factions were more interested in embarrassing the new PM to weaken his still fragile hold on the Party. The PM replied with the clear roman dictum ‘mors tua vita mea’.

This cannot be a good omen either for the fortunes of the PN in these elections as well as for what to expect thereafter.”

 I did not have to wait too long to prove my ‘mors tua vita mea’ contention. And if this is the most logical way to interpret recent events I cannot help feeling that we are being treated like headless chickens in being expected to accept the whole issue closed by the simple resignation of Mr Dalli because he felt attacked by a PBS journalist.

If the Prime Minister has found nothing wrong with the Iran Shipping Contract handling and has referred for investigation by the Auditor General the air tickets issue, why has he accepted so pre-maturely Mr Dalli’s resignation? There are so many ‘non-sequiturs’ that I give more credence to street talk that John Dalli had to resign or face being fired, rather than to the official published correspondence which gives a thin sugar coating surface to a bubbly underlying which is shrouded in secrecy.

If Mr Dalli’s resignation was worth accepting why not tell us plainly why. And if so, why not look into the more serious claims of malfeasance which were never properly investigated? If on the other hand Mr Dalli’s resignation was accepted, indeed engineered and forced as Mr Dalli’s official resignation communication clearly implied, why is this so? Is the national interest of preserving some of the best elements in the Cabinet being compromised for the political convenience of the Prime Minister who could not work comfortably with his direct challenger for the post? How ironic for this to happen in the same days that Senator John Kerry, the Democratic candidate for the White House contest next November, has chosen as his running mate his main contender Senator John Edwards. Where has our maturity gone?

In fairness to Mr Dalli one must register his achievements in gaining strides of improvements in tax collection efficiency. The Ministry of Finance, where Min Dalli spent most of his 10 years of ministerial experience, has direct responsibility for the revenue side of the budget and I dare say that his performance in this respect was stellar. The failings to control the expenditure side of the budget obviously has to be shouldered by Mr Dalli but this is a shared responsibility with the whole cabinet. Without strict Cabinet support there is pretty little a Minister of Finance can do to rein in the budget deficit.

When finally we seem to be approaching Cabinet collegial sensitivity to the need to rein in the deficit, is it in the national interest to lose someone with the skills of Mr Dalli in the Cabinet?

Labour’s experience in handling Ministerial resignations in the 1996-98 government was a much more transparent event. Lino Spiteri disagreement on two major government policies were publicised giving his resignation a seal of honour rather than any suspicion of impropriety. Charles Mangion resignation for quite a trivial infringement was also fully explained giving Dr Mangion the opportunity to exit with his head high and to return worth full honours.

Unless there is more than meets the eye, it is in the national interest for the Dalli resignation saga to be properly explained. If he is guilty of malfeasance we have a right to know and government has an obligation to inform. If he is not guilty, and no one has yet proved he is, his resignation should be properly explained giving Mr Dalli the opportunity to exit with honour whilst keeping open the prospect to return.

Failing this I am at liberty to draw my own conclusions. And these are that no matter how much the whole corpse of the PN was moved towards the centre-stage of Maltese politics, without which it cannot achieve political power, its top echelons are still the preserve of the old professions with restricted access to strata of society considered too lay in the eyes of the Christian influence within the party. People from the new professions with origins in the lay strata of society will inevitably find the road to the top of the PN blocked, no matter their skills and competences. And those who obstinate and force their way through, will be ditched out!