The outcome of the Daphne Caruana Galizia murder inquiry cannot be trivialised or ignored, the Malta Chamber of Commerce, Enterprise and Industry said on Friday as it called for immediate action.

President Marisa Xuereb said “we must act now on what needs to be done without further procrastination”. 

The country, she said, had gone through an ugly spiral that culminated in the death of a journalist, a heinous crime that seared the collective conscience of the Maltese and damaged Malta’s international reputation in a profound way.

Xuereb said that Malta could not truly heal before everyone detached themselves from partisan emotions and committed to an objective assessment of failings.

This had to be accompanied by an honest and unconditional process of reform, centred around the values of transparency, accountability, integrity, and civic responsibility at all levels of government, politics, journalism, business, and social interaction.

Bad for business

The Malta Chamber reiterated that corruption is bad for everyone, but is especially bad for business.

“It favours the few at the expense of the many ethical businesses who are unfairly excluded, or worse still, compromised by having to settle for the crumbs that fall off the table in full knowledge that they are not operating on a level playing field.”

It was not big business, but corruption, that brought the country to its knees, the Chamber argued. 

In the context of business, public procurement is extremely sensitive, the chamber said adding it had published a detailed report  on public procurement reform that it expected all entities involved to take very seriously.

“We cannot continue to justify unfair practices on the grounds of a lack of resources or expediency. We cannot continue to trivialise wrongdoings because others may have done worse. We cannot continue to turn a blind eye to unethical behaviour and blatant conflicts of interest for fear of losing favour. We need to consistently adopt a high moral ground in everything we do,” Xuereb said.

This, she added, had far-reaching implications on the way business was done, journalism was conducted, politics financed and public officers appointed.