A page from the Freeport fact file

The political heat, not eased at all by the languor of midsummer days, is making more than one memory seem rather ragged. That may harmonise with frayed political tempers, but contributes nothing at all to clarity. The prevailing to-do about the Freeport and its chairman Mr Marin Hili has, among other things, thrown up a very crude example of this bag of mixed factors.

Parts of the opposition are in full flight after the chairman's scalp. Not, they say, as a personal matter. But because, they feel, his purchase of a 50 per cent stake in the port of Venice, and his reported declaration that if it came to the toss, he would leave the Malta Freeport to concentrate on his investment has created a conflict of interest.

The conflict, say those parts of the opposition, is for the prime minister to resolve in terms of his own 1994 code of ethics - the chairman has been clear enough about his investment. Those parts of the government that are speaking out - the prime minister and the minister responsible for the Freeport - maintain no conflict of interest or breach of the code of ethics exist. That's where the political heat turns white and starts searing the memory.

On the one hand the Labour media report that Mr Hili has been chairman of the Freeport for years under Nationalist governments. Not a hint that he was also in that post right through the 22 months of Labour's sojourn in office between late October 1996 and early September 1998. On the other hand, the prime minister declared that "when Labour was elected to government, all the chairmen were removed from their post except Mr Hili. I did what (PM) Dr Sant did and kept him." (The Times, July 27) The unadorned basic facts are as follows.

As finance minister in the new Labour government of 1996, I ignored a number of offers of resignation, made in line with practice whenever there is a change of administration. I kept on as chairmen Prof. Joe Bannister at the MFSC, Frederick Mifsud Bonnici at the Malta Stock Exchange, Dr John Grech at the Bank of Valletta. Francis Vassallo, as governor of the Central Bank, did not feel one should offer his resignation from such a post, but would have gone had I asked him to. I didn't.

As for Mr Hili at the Freeport, I did not have to mull over his position for too long, though the context of my mental exercise was tricky enough. Parts of Labour in opposition had taken to classifying Mr Hili as one of Malta's 'barons', an unmistakable derogatory and loaded term. Could I keep a 'baron', whom I did not know from Adam, in a key public sector post?

The whirring of my thoughts must have been quite loud. Word came to me from sources close to the GWU (not, I should say, from members of the then or present administration) that it would be detrimental to the Freeport if Mr Hili were to go. While no one is indispensable, much of what is tricky about change is preparation and timing. Mr Hili stayed. I also put on the board two gentlemen who, I felt, had the qualities to absorb the culture of the Freeport, given time and exposure.

I was not around long enough to monitor developments from close up. In the little short of six months I stayed in the cabinet, Mr Hili's relationship with me was always correct and proactive. When I left towards the end of March 1997, my former finance and economic services portfolio was split. The Freeport became the responsibility of the minister for industry, John Attard Montalto. Mr Hili remained chairman at the Freeport. Elsewhere, in time, other chairmen were changed when their term expired.

However much the political heat soars, the facts should be left in place. They do not solve anything. But it would be better if they were not be ignored, truncated or distorted to add more fuel to the fire. It is raging high enough as it is.