Dark clouds and black gold

Last week's report by the Auditor General on oil procurement procedures at Enemalta is a worrying account of what happened during the last administration. It highlights the gross inefficiencies with which the Fuel Procurement Committee at Enemalta awarded tenders for what effectively is the government's largest purchase. The NAO described the process as "poor management practices".

The doodle-ridden, indecipherable minutes of the procurement meetings published in newspapers are a symbol of such inefficiency. To make matters worse, the minister responsible at the time, Austin Gatt, claims that since he is no longer a public figure, he is no longer interested. Tonio Fenech, who was responsible for this committee for nine months before the introduction of new measures to control the procurement policy, obviously did not see anything wrong in his own government's previous policy. He should have initiated an investigation and not tried to defend his government's wrongdoing. So much for accountability and the hype about it, which used to so excite the PN.

During such meetings, the financial well-being of Maltese families was at stake and decisions were taken so lightly that nobody bothered to take proper minutes. Important records, such as who was present for meetings and who negotiated prices, are missing.

Procurement procedures at Enemalta during the previous administration raise many questions. The lack of financial strategies and consideration for currency fluctuations are also crucial failures which cost Enemalta, and in turn Maltese families, tens of millions over the years.

The frustrating part was that the people were completely in the dark about such shortcomings. There are serious concerns if senior government members were aware of such irregularities at the time.

It would be reasonable to assume that oil procurements, which in many cases were in excess of $200 million, were handled by the government using an army of people looking at graphs and statistics to get the best possible price. Instead we had procurement committee members criticising the fact that oil purchasing was the chairman's territory.

It is crucial to put everything into context. At the time, the Opposition flagged these and other issues, and the common tactic used by the PN in government was one of derision, labelling the Labour Party as ultimate conspiracy theorists. However the mathematics never added up, and the political barricades, such as not allowing the Public Accounts Committee to investigate such procedures, continuously raised red flags.

The fact that Malta was on the road to gas-fired equipment years ago, only to change strategy at the eleventh hour, shows that someone, somewhere was going to lose the comfort of these inefficiencies. This was to the detriment of local businesses which, unbeknownst to them, had been used as an unofficial pizzo (that is, protection money paid to the mafia).

The Auditor General pointed out that the system was "fraught with gaps and weaknesses", but the real questions that need to be answered are whether these shortcomings were intentional or not. By looking at the winners of the bids over the past decade, one can easily deduce an answer to that question.

Keep the Maltese out

On one side, a queue of dark-skinned men is trying to get in. On the other side, a large crowd of white workers is being thrown out of factories. Large script reads, "Foreigners are taking our jobs. Let's keep them out." Eight years ago, I found myself staring at this yellow, faded poster hanging in the Emigration Museum in Melbourne. It was issued some 98 years ago by the Australian Workers' Union and plastered on many walls, in the campaign to keep undesirable foreigners from invading Australia and taking over the jobs of its citizens.

After the outbreak of World War I, xenophobia against enemy nations intensified and the persecution of, and discrimination against, small groups of 'enemy aliens' living in Australia increased markedly. Sections of the anti-conscription movement argued that the Australian Nationalist Party in government was planning to flood Australia with cheap labour from overseas, leading to knee-jerk restrictions against Greek and Maltese immigrants. In 1912 the Australian government excluded Maltese immigrants from the assisted passage scheme as a result of trade union bans on cheap labour. In the same year the government legislated the new policy of white Australia, called the 1901 Immigration Restriction Act.

Several historians of Maltese emigration show us how the darkest period in the history of Maltese migration in South Australia occurred in the 1920s, when they were savagely discriminated against. The Australian government banned Maltese from being employed with the Australian railways. The irony is that a large number of them had served in WWI. The majority of the Maltese suffered hunger and despair, in spite of many of them being skilled artisans. Mr Gunn, the South Australian premier, regarded the Maltese as "uninvited immigrants" and refused to assist them to find employment. Many of them had to return to Malta or go to other states and find work on small farms run by fellow Maltese Australians.

Dr Barry York tells us that the largest single group of persons excluded from Australia after the Chinese were the Maltese. The dictation test was used to keep the Maltese out.  York says, "The dictation test was neither an educational nor a literary test. It was not really a test at all but a ploy designed to keep out individuals or groups whom the government of the day or immigration and customs officers felt were undesirable immigrants.

"The absurd and dishonest nature of the dictation test is revealed by a handful of cases: a Japanese kept out after failing a test in Greek, an English divorcee excluded after failing the test in Italian, 208 Maltese kept out after failing it in Dutch, and so on."

In the 1920s some Maltese were allowed into Australia to work in the coalmines, as they were considered "good for dirty and menial work" and "a lesser evil than the Africans and Asians".

In the same period Maltese were classified as aliens in Canada, too, although Malta was a European island within the British Empire and had been self-governed since 1921.

In 1923 the federal government issued a Privy Council order indicating the categories of British subjects who were to be allowed to enter Canada. That order specifically left the Maltese out, while it opened the door to British subjects who hailed from Great Britain, Ireland, Newfoundland, New Zealand, Australia and the Union of South Africa. Men and women who had the great fortune of being "preferred" in Canadian eyes came from France, Belgium, Germany, Switzerland, Holland, Finland and Scandinavia. The lower types, who fell into the category "non-preferred", were those who came from southern Europe, including the Maltese. These were to be admitted only when there was no one from the superior categories willing to take vacant jobs. Moreover the non-preferred would only be allowed in if they were willing to work on the land and had a promise of work when they filled in their application to enter Canada.

Evarist Bartolo is Minister for Education