No ordinary case

A lot of speculation is doing the rounds regarding the conclusions of Magistrate Gabriella Vella in the hospitals inquiry. So far, the findings are not public, as is normal for such inquiries. 

However, the veiled remarks being made by Repubblika lawyer Jason Azzopardi on his Facebook wall suggesting a cataclysmic event; the pre-emptive strike by Chris Fearne who told the Labour parliamentary group that he is hearing that his name is on a list of individuals indicated with wrongdoing; the growing expectation among Labour Party functionaries that the magistrate has cast the widest net possible that could include top civil servants; the Prime Minister’s comments that suggest he knows more about the inquiry than he is letting out; the leaked attachment order that has been doing the rounds on WhatsApp groups; are all cause for wild speculation. 

This leader believes the best way forward is for the inquiry conclusions to be published so that everyone can draw their own conclusions on the findings. In these circumstances, transparency can help inform the public debate better. 

This is no ordinary case. It involves a flagship project of the previous administration that not only failed to get off the ground but is mired in corruption allegations. It involves a project that the civil courts already pronounced judgment on by rescinding the contract and all its side agreements. It involves a former prime minister, former Cabinet members and several high-ranking officials, apart from foreign nationals. 

This is a case that has wide-ranging political and administrative ramifications, which cannot be ignored. 

The timing of the inquiry’s conclusion with the start of the electoral campaign was unfortunate because it allows the magistrate’s conclusions to be used, abused and misused in the political arena with the risk of obfuscating justice. 

Nonetheless, it should not have been the Prime Minister to criticise this aspect, more so in the way he did. 

If Abela truly felt the need to remark on the inappropriateness of the magistrate concluding her inquiry on the same day that election nominations started being filed, he could have chosen less pointed words and a more appropriate forum than the electoral podium. 

Abela’s repeated remarks on the magistrate have only helped fuel animosity among Labour supporters that risks escalating into something really ugly. The magistrate herself has ended up as a target on Emanuel Cuschieri’s Facebook wall with her photo being put up for public ridicule. 

When he embarked on his irresponsible tirade against the judiciary, Abela lost the moral authority to reel in the hotheads who may feel justified to act as they please if Muscat ends up in the dock. 

Rather than take up a political crusade against the judiciary, Abela should ensure that justice is truly served because the people deserve no less than the truth.

Spin and dignity

Housing Minister Roderick Galdes went for the easiest trick in the book when he dubbed the Siggiewi ghost voters scandal as ‘MaltaToday spin’. 

When confronted outside parliament last week, he did not deny any of the facts reported by this newspaper last Sunday. Instead, he tried to justify the move by saying people deserving of social housing should not have to wait until after 8 June to move into their new homes. 

The truth is that none of the 99 people who were allocated social housing units in the Siggiewi development can move into their apartments anytime soon. 

When a MaltaToday journalist visited the place, he found internal finishing works still underway. The lift was not yet installed; the apartments had no water and electricity; electricity wall sockets were still to be completed and internal doors were not yet installed. The apartments cannot be lived in and no one is actually living there. So, when these 99 people had their ID cards shifted to these apartments in the past three weeks the transfer was done despite them not residing there. 

Galdes may argue that the transfer of the ID card was in preparation for the time when these people will be able to move into the property and it is pure coincidence that the process coincided with the start of the local council election campaign. We simply do not buy this puerile excuse. 

Had this been a matter of days, the whole thing would be a non-story, but it is obvious that the properties require much more time to be finished and become habitable. 

The timing is of government’s choosing and conveniently it came just as the new electoral register for the local council elections was being published. 

Galdes can pull the other leg. It is pretty obvious what happened here. The Labour Party wanted to boost its chances of retaining control of the Siġġiewi council after the historic victory five years ago by a mere 70 votes. The government obliged by speeding up the process to have the ID cards of those entitled to social housing transferred to the new apartment block irrespective of whether they can live there. In other words, this is gerrymandering on a local level. 

It is wrong for the government to use social housing in this underhand way to try and gain electoral advantage. But apart from being a question of electoral unfairness, it is also a question of lack of respect towards the very same people who will eventually be living in the apartment block. Even if these people deserve social accommodation and have been on the waiting list for years, it is degrading to be used in this way by the government for the PL’s electoral considerations. 

If anybody was spinning, it certainly wasn’t MaltaToday.