Recent developments in the Air Malta saga confirm why the public administration lacks transparency and credibility.
The national airline is the only commercial enterprise whose majority shareholder is the government. It competes with other airlines and the EU competition authorities regularly review its operations.
Air Malta traded while in a state of insolvency for several years, relying on the implied reassurance that the Maltese government would underwrite any losses made by the airline.
The company’s accounts for 2019, 2020 and 2021 remain outstanding even if the Companies Act makes it mandatory for such accounts to be published in a reasonable time. The finance minister refused to disclose the accounts through the Freedom of Information request citing “commercial sensitivity”.
Any commercial company breaching the law so blatantly would risk ending up in court
Any commercial company breaching the law so blatantly would risk ending up in court and the directors charged with criminal negligence for not following the letter and spirit of the law.
What is even more worrying is that other government departments and quasi-autonomous non-government organisations may be hiding many other gross breaches of good governance at the expense of taxpayers.
Transparency in public administration is the right of people. It is the freedom to know the details of the steps and measures taken by the different elements of the system.
When politicians start to interfere in the administrative arm of government, they often feel free to manipulate public funds and force decisions on civil servants who may be too weak to resist undue pressure from their political masters.
Lack of transparency helps corrupt politicians and dishonest or incompetent public officials to undermine people’s welfare. Many taxpayers work hard day and night and pay their taxes in the hope that they get the public services that they need.
Finance Minister Clyde Caruana did well to declare war on tax evasion. But his credibility will be dented if he does not start this war by taking action against the political parties that have not submitted their accounts when due and are defaulting on their tax payments.
Leaders of government organisations who, unlike Air Malta, do not fall under the scrutiny of independent institutions at times use their partisan political connections to hide their abusive decisions that cost taxpayers dearly. In the last few years, decisions taken in the corridors of power were exposed by those giving evidence in the Daphne Caruana Galizia public inquiry.
The risk management structure of the public service is not fit for purpose. While the Office of the Auditor-General is doing some sterling work to expose abuse of power by politicians and senior civil servants, it cannot realistically fulfil the function of an effective and constant internal audit.
If government departments and other state-controlled organisations have an internal audit function, it is certainly not helping to prevent corruption.
For instance, the head of the civil service, rather than supporting the work of the ombudsman, engages in political diatribes aimed at devaluing the contribution of this independent official to the promotion of truth, honesty and transparency in public administration.
When the economic cycle turns, people will become more interested in seeing how their taxes are being used by those who are merely temporary stewards of the public purse.
A dose of transparency in public administration will curb the corrupt rule of some powerful politicians and the bureaucrats that support their immoral practices.