In August, the president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, regretted that Malta’s anti-corruption reforms were “limited”. She’s not the only one to think so. Malta has just sunk to its lowest-ever level on the Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI).
Just perceptions, you say? Yes, but they can be compared with previous perceptions.
Lowest-ever. That’s lower than 2016, when the Panama Gang was exposed. It’s lower than 2019, when Joseph Muscat was booted out, disgraced and anointed Person of the Year by the Organised Crime and Corruption Reporting Project. In 2021, people gave Robert Abela’s government a pass and registered their impression that progress was being made over the previous year. In 2022, their confidence slumped and Malta fell five places.
One of the symptoms of institutionalised corruption is low levels of civic participation. The recent news of comparatively low Maltese interest in voting indicates that our CPI score is rooted in widespread demoralisation.
Transparency International defines corruption as the abuse of public power for private gain. It calculates the CPI using surveys and expert opinion. At the top of the table are the most clean countries. At the bottom, the most corrupt.
Out of 180 countries surveyed, we just made it into the top third – 54th place. We’re ranked lower than the United Arab Emirates (27) and Qatar (40), in spite of the personal arbitrariness of their rulers and all the oil money slushing around.
We are 23rd out of 27 EU member states. We’re ahead only of Croatia, Romania, Bulgaria and Hungary.
Globally, we’re ranked equally with Rwanda and Saudi Arabia. Pop the champagne and congratulate the reforming ministers.
We can’t blame the nature of our economy alone. Luxembourg, also a financial centre, soars above us (10).
Barbados (29) and the Bahamas (30), rank above us, too. There was a time when Malta insisted its financial services shouldn’t be confused with theirs. Our current ranking should help minimise confusion.
We can’t just blame passport sales, either. Saint Lucia and Dominica (both 45) are doing better.
Nor can we blame contagion from nearby countries. Despite all its problems with organised crime, Italy kept its rank stable and above us (41).
We’re sliding down the CPI ladder even though the government’s control over information is tighter than in Muscat’s time. The ruling party has a stranglehold over the public broadcaster. Abela is interviewed almost exclusively by flunkies. And Freedom of Information requests are routinely denied and fought in court, imposing prohibitive financial risk on media houses.
Institutionalised corruption is like an autoimmune disorder. It weakens the system, destroys morale and trust- Ranier Fsadni
How to explain that corruption perceptions were going up in the same year that Abela won resoundingly at the polls?
It’s not as mysterious as it looks. He won a general election in early 2022, on the back of an improving CPI performance in 2021. Today, there’s simmering anger among Labour voters over corruption.
Besides, a dismal CPI rank doesn’t exclude government popularity. Hungary is the worst-performing EU state (77) but Viktor Orban had a crushing electoral victory last year.
The CPI reminds us how naive it is to seek to explain corruption by focusing exclusively on Maltese culture. There are scores of other countries, across the globe, with corruption problems.
It’s not just naive. It’s counterproductive. We give an alibi to those public servants who blame Maltese culture for their modus operandi.
We’d do better to learn from other parts of the world. We’d be able to see how corruption is sometimes enabled by the better part of ourselves, not just the worst.
Here’s Garry Kasparov, the anti-Putin activist, speaking of the consequences of tolerating corruption and electoral fraud in 1990s Russia under Boris Yeltsin:
“I confess that I was one of those who thought at the time that sacrificing some of the integrity of the democratic process was the lesser evil if it was required to keep the hated Communists from regaining power.
“Such trade-offs are nearly always a mistake and it was in this case as it paved the way for a more ruthless individual to exploit the weakened system.”
Corruption is sometimes enabled by misguided pragmatism. Here’s Michael Reid, a top journalist of Latin America:
“The spectre of corruption hangs ever more threateningly over democratic politics in the region. Corruption has long been endemic. Voters tolerate politicians who ‘steal but get things done’...”
Why call it misguided if it works? Because it only works for a time. Decisions in the public interest have to be long-term. Corruption and maladministration lead to short-term decisions.
The CPI shows the most successful economies are also the cleanest. They haven’t cured human nature. They’ve simply built systems to keep corruption, embezzlement and fraud to a minimum.
Global experience tells us what the major causes of institutionalised corruption are: a culture of secrecy with a lack of transparency; weak institutions for securing the accountability of public servants; and weakness of the investigative agencies and the judiciary.
Abela’s government ticks all those boxes. It’s hostile to journalists. It undermines the offices of the auditor general, the ombudsman and the standards commissioner, among others. Seven years after Panamagate, we have yet to see anyone charged in court.
The point of discussing the CPI is not point-scoring. It’s a way to keep track of our malaise.
Institutionalised corruption is like an autoimmune disorder. It weakens the system, destroys morale and trust and leaves the system unable to fight off people whose rapacity can destroy the country.
Meanwhile, our government speaks of how the country is climbing ladders, even as it slithers with the snakes.