So many major projects undertaken over the past years – but especially post-2013 – have an aura of malfeasance, if not outright corruption about them, that one should be tempted to look again if all appears to be in order.
Suspicious ‘connections’ between politicians and big business, often resulting in shady dealings, further raise fears that crooks have their dirty fingers, all 10 of them, in many a pie.
Another two examples surfaced over the past few days.
The European Public Prosecutor’s Office is looking into the €40 million Marsa flyover contract on suspicion that fraud may have been involved.
The police in Malta had been eyeing the project after they seized Yorgen Fenech’s mobile phone three years ago as part of investigations into Daphne Caruana Galizia’s assassination.
Fenech, it seems, was acting as a middleman in the project and was promised a €2 million “success fee”, half of which was planned to be funnelled to a secret offshore company linked to 17 Black. One will recall that, according to a leaked Panama Papers e-mail, 17 Black was going to be used to channel funds to Keith Schembri, the former head of Joseph Muscat’s secretariat at Castille, and former energy minister Konrad Mizzi.
The European Public Prosecutor’s Office will, hopefully, do a more thorough and speedier job than the Maltese police.
A lawsuit in the US about “false representations” and the disappearance of €1.49 million meant for the supply of COVID-19 antigen tests has no direct connection with Malta.
However, the defendant does. The Pakistani national being sued by a US medical company is behind suspicious payments made to Muscat.
There is more. He is being sued personally together with Swiss company Spring Healthcare, which he runs.
Spring Healthcare describes itself as a partner of Steward International, the US company that took over the Maltese hospitals contract from Vitals Global Healthcare in 2018, although Steward has denied having any relationship with it. It’s about connections and an intricate and widespread web. Layer after layer, it is meant to make joining the dots very difficult if not impossible.
The ITS land in Pembroke, the St Vincent de Paul Home project, Electrogas, the Montenegro deal, Vitals Global Healthcare and the American University of Malta are among the big scandals that have rocked this country along the years. And they keep coming, as the latest claims in court about a “fishy” multi-million cancer treatment contract show.
The police are already overwhelmed with the investigations they choose to conduct. Imagine if they had to follow every lead and serious allegation. The same applies to the courts.
The Nationalist Party had proposed to have a special inquiring magistrate against corruption. The government shot down the suggestion, which could have set the ball rolling though by no means solve the problem.
It will be good to look at the Italian experience. Operation Mani pulite (clean hands) started 30 years ago, launching a nationwide investigation into the extensive problem of political corruption. Earlier this year, the president of the National Anti-Corruption Authority of Italy, Giuseppe Busia, noted: “Corruption has dispersed in a thousand streams. But it exists, it is more hidden and, therefore, more dangerous, especially in the phase of large public investments.” His advice on how to deal with the situation today is as good for his country as it is for this tiny island.
What is fundamental, he said, is boosting the culture of legality, enhance the practice of good administration and have in place robust checks to ensure public money only benefits citizens.
This is an exercise this country has yet to embark upon. It dithers at its own peril.