Winning a general election with a huge majority appears to have given Joseph Muscat a sense of superiority that allows him to think he can get away with anything he does wrong, even if it is clear to all, or practically all, that he is going over the limit in certain matters.
His steadfast refusal to take the logical kind of action most would have expected in the wake of the Panama Papers revelations is a case in point. But there have been – and there still are – other aspects of the way he and his government are managing the country that calls for scrutiny.
The way Labour has climbed down so dramatically from the good governance benchmark they had set before the election must have already cost the party dearly in support among the politically uncommitted segment of the electorate. It would seem as if Dr Muscat and his party are interpreting the overwhelming support they received as equating to an electoral carte blanche.
Commitments made during heady election campaigns may often lose much of their significance when those taking power get out of sync with the feelings of the electorate and take routes seen by many as going against the grain. Take the size of the Cabinet, for example.
Dr Muscat now has a Cabinet of ministers that is staggering both in size and in cost to the taxpayer. With a population of less than half a million, Malta now has a Cabinet of 16 ministers, equal to that in Italy and three short of David Cameron’s in Britain.
Putting the Cabinet size into sharper perspective, it is larger than that of a number of medium-size member states of the European Union. Dr Muscat’s first Cabinet is estimated to have cost €15.4 million a year but, with the latest reshuffle, the cost has shot up to €16.2 million.
Why has he found it so necessary to expand his Cabinet to such a super size? Is it because the complexity of the island’s economy and social life demands micro management? Hardly. Or is he being forced to do so by evolving circumstances over which he is losing control, such as, for instance, the Panama Papers revelations?
Whatever the circumstances, it does not make sense to be so extravagant at the taxpayer’s expense and expand the Cabinet to such a huge size, more so when, besides the ministers, there is then a whole cadre of parliamentary secretaries, regulators, authorities and other quangos, not to mention, too, the string of local councils.
This is a clear case of over-management. Should the government keep expanding the administration when a leaner structure can possibly produce the same, if not a better, result? The fact that the economy is doing well does not mean the government can act so extravagantly. There have been other examples showing the administration is tending to overspend.
When considering the size of the Cabinet, it is not just the number of ministers that has to be taken into account. A minister is allowed to have a 19-strong private secretariat and a parliamentary secretary, an 11-man team. Besides, the number of people engaged on a position-of-trust basis has proliferated, with some of the appointments bordering on very dubious exigencies while others are purely political.
Enough time has passed to conclude that Dr Muscat has not lived up to expectations insofar as good governance is concerned. The bad example he is giving does not indicate he is eager to mend his ways.