Like a frightened pupil hiding behind his teacher in the schoolyard, Konrad Mizzi sought the speaker’s protection when he felt cornered before parliament’s public accounts committee. He refused to reply to questions – those he did not like – until the Speaker gave a ruling on the matter.
The speaker has now decided: all members of the public accounts committee are free to put questions with regard to the auditor general’s report on the Electrogas deal.
When questioning witnesses, the speaker continued, committee members should be objective, cautious and abide by the standing orders, laws, guidelines and parliamentary committees’ rules.
In a previous ruling, the speaker had noted that the committee chair must enforce order and is responsible for the conduct of a sitting.
Mizzi, who has been resorting to every ploy possible to avoid having to face the music, has no way out. He never wanted to be grilled by the committee and reluctantly accepted just hours after the opposition tabled a motion aimed at having him summoned to appear before the parliamentary public accounts watchdog. But even then, he persisted with his cowardly attitude.
Indeed, the latest ruling by the speaker may not be the final chapter in this saga. Do not hold your breath until Mizzi starts replying to questions about the finger or two he had in the Electrogas pie. And do not be surprised either if he and his defence team should come up with some other ploy.
His conduct thus far is an insult and an affront to the public accounts committee that has rightly been described as an integral part of a democratic system and a main instrument to oversee the executive.
In a paper appearing on the Journal of Accounting, Finance and Auditing Studies, two academics and a senior auditor concluded that the public accounts committee “is instrumental in the conduct of effective financial scrutiny and oversight, which, in turn, enhances its contribution to the proper management of Maltese public finances”.
All committee members have not only the right but also the duty to delve deep into matters before them if they are to ensure the public purse is being administered in the best way possible.
It is up to them to decide on the line of questioning of witnesses they want to hear.
This could well entail a fishing expedition, also because the information they may want to find or confirm could go beyond the contents of documents in their possession.
The truth can often be uncomfortable and tempers could easily flare during a questioning session.
Still, the parliamentary committee must be treated with respect and the first duty falls on the chairperson and its members.
Slinging matches have no place in such fora and the Nationalist MPs sitting on the public accounts committee, including its chair, should ensure they behave in an exemplary manner and not give in to provocation. Doing so only suits Mizzi and the government members who continuously come to his aid, putting partisan interests before the common good.
It takes some cheek for someone like Mizzi – who had a leading role in an administration found to have nurtured a culture of impunity that led to the murder of an investigative journalist – to accuse the Nationalist MPs on the committee of being part of “a group of people who think they can hijack the institutions”.
A classical case of the pot calling the kettle black.