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The way the PN media pounced on the story of the MLP delegation to Dubai – originally exposed during an Alfred Sant interview on Bondiplus – is undoubtedly an attempt to give the MLP a taste of its own medicine. The delegation officially consisted of four members – three MPs and the party’s International Secretary – but in actual fact included also four contractors who are not only known for their Labour sympathies (one of them is the husband of a Labour MP) but who also have established business connections with two of the members of the delegation: former ministers in Alfred Sant’s 1996 cabinet, Deputy Leader Charles Mangion and Charles Buhagiar.
The MLP is trying to paper over this story by claiming that there was nothing untoward in this episode. Last Sunday, three different ‘innocent babes in the woods’ – Lino Cassar in it-Torca; Claire Bonello in MaltaToday; and Marie Benoit in The Malta Independent on Sunday – attempted in quite different ways to sell the idea that the so-called scandal is no scandal at all.
Perhaps, the PN media was wrong in trying to portray the episode as an example of the ‘friends of friends’ (Hbieb tal-Hbieb) phenomenon as coined by Alfred Sant. I do not agree that this is the case and, in any case, ‘friends of friends’ allegations were always tenuous and vague.
However the story belies a very serious lack of moral values and principles as far as the MLP is concerned. If there was nothing to be ashamed of, why did the MLP give the impression that its four prominent members were on their own when they went to Dubai? If everything was above board, shouldn’t they have said that four contractors were also going with them? This, of course, immediately raises several other questions: Why did these four contractors go to Dubai with the MLP delegation? How were they chosen and on what criteria? How did these particular four contractors come to know of the MLP delegation but other contractors – whatever their political sympathies – were left in the dark? Is it just a coincidence that three of these four contractors have close business relations with two members of the official delegation? Is it just a coincidence that two of these contractors were involved in the construction of the MLP headquarters?
These questions are legitimate in view of the fact that in their press conference on their Dubai visit, the four members of the official delegation said that they were going on a fact finding mission with a view of preparing themselves for the day when the MLP will be in government. Joe Sammut defending the Dubai adventure two weeks ago in l-orizzont, echoed the official raison d’être of the trip and had the gall to claim that through this official delegation, the MLP in Opposition was already showing how a serious government should work!
Ostensibly, the MLP delegation was on party business – serious business regarding the party’s status of Malta’s alternative government. The four contractors, who have now confirmed that they themselves paid for their trip, visited Dubai in their personal interest and nothing else. And here is the big conundrum. Here we have an incredible muddle where the national interest, the MLP’s interest and the personal interest of four chosen contractors were inexorably merged.
I do not think that there is any level-headed person in this country who believes that there can be no clash between these three very different interests. The fact that the MLP first hid the presence of the four contractors confirms this. Yet when this presence was discovered, Labour started to act as if they think otherwise and defended the jumbled way in which things were done.
The real scandal is that the MLP is not capable of drawing a line between the different interests that this trip involved. For them an obvious and irrefutable clash of interests is of no import.
Charles Mangion and Charles Buhagiar have every right to go abroad on business trips accompanied by the partners with whom they are shareholders in different limited liability companies. The MLP has every right to send a delegation with the intention of learning first-hand how Dubai was developed, what is going on in that country, and to garner some knowledge that they will find useful once in government.
But can these two exercises be intertwined and concocted into one mission, with nobody knowing where one effort stops and where the other begins? What makes the whole story stink is the way this Dubai trip ended up merging these two very different ‘rights’, producing one obvious ‘wrong’. Interests are not a pack of cards that can be shuffled and dealt to different players; and political ethics do not solely concern misuse of public funds.
It is perhaps worthwhile to recall an episode from the times when the MLP, led by Dom Mintoff, was in power in order to show how the MLP in government could not fathom the difference between personal interests and what strictly belongs to the state. When Tug Malta was set up, someone got the bright idea of baptising the first tugboat that was bought ‘Cetta’ after Dom Mintoff’s mother. The idea took off and risked spinning into an epidemic. Another tugboat was named ‘Felicia’ after Wistin Abela’s mother and yet another was named ‘Anni’ after Lorry Sant’s mother. There was no cash for favours. There was no misuse of public funds. By some would-be puritan’s yardstick, there was therefore nothing wrong. But, of course, it is obvious that it was unethical and wrong. Mixing (in whatever way) private interests (of whatever nature) with the public interest is always wrong.
Last Tuesday, the PN media continued to build on the story by reporting that a meeting on the issue was held at the MLP Headquarters. Those present for this meeting included Charles Mangion, Charles Buhagiar, Alfred Sant, and the four contractors. In an effort to contain the onslaught of the PN media, Super One news last Tuesday included an item saying that the meeting was held simply to discuss legal strategy regarding the ‘fictitious’ allegations in the PN media. Speaking in Parliament on Wednesday, Charles Mangion confirmed that there were only legal issues – for which read more and more libel cases – on the meeting’s agenda.
These statements, unwittingly, confirmed that the delegation was one and indivisible! And that is where the scandal lies.
micfal@maltanet.net
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