Every now and then, I come across a word that intrigues me. It happened to me two days ago. The word was snollygoster. For those of you who, like me, had no idea what this word means, it refers to a person who puts greed before principles.

I figured that a photo of our cabinet of ministers, with snollygoster written over it, would not be amiss. Over the past eight years, we have seen a terrifying erosion of principles at all levels of administration. The colours of our flag are no longer white and red. They are green. Our hallmark is no longer hospitality: it is greed. Greed that has corrupted our way of thinking.

It is a way of thinking that knows no border. Everything is for sale as long as there is a profit. This government sacrificed natural beauty and architectural heritage for economic gain on a scale that was never witnessed before. The government sold our national identity to the highest bidders.

This government put up a sham system to grant that which, on paper, should be our most coveted possession: our citizenship.

The government’s reply to the Passport Papers press revelations on serious shortcomings in the sale of citizenship was pathetic but revealing. It said that we needed the money to save Malta on a rainy day.

This line of thinking is factually wrong and morally wrong.

It is factually wrong because the government has year-on-year increased its everyday spending not least by putting thousands of people on the public payroll without necessarily improving the efficiency or the quality of the service offered by public entities to the public.

These include Labour lackeys who were given contracts, worth hundreds of thousands of euros, for no justifiable reason other than that they were indeed Labour lackeys.

A significant percentage of the money from the IIP scheme is going to maintain this unprecedented increase in recurrent expenditure. The opposition had repeatedly warned the government that this increase in outlay was unsustainable.

Regrettably, we were proved right and Malta now is registering record levels of public deficit and debt. Indeed, the second highest level of deficit as a percentage to GDP within the EU.

It is morally wrong because a government should never sell our national identity to cover its costs. But, then, this government has no moral standing.

If proof was needed, just read through the depositions made by ministers in the public inquiry investigating whether the government did all it could to prevent the assassination of Daphne Caruana Galizia and in other inquires and trials. They are truly shocking.

Greed that has corrupted our way of thinking- Mario de Marco

Minister after minister trying to explain why they saw nothing, heard nothing, said nothing. Ministers contradicting themselves under oath. Ministers saying that they wanted to act but didn’t because the income was too good. Ministers saying that they could not act because of political considerations.

Prime Minister Robert Abela wants us to think that public institutions are working. The truth is that public institutions were forced to act despite and not thanks to the government.

The delay and haphazard operations of the police force and the Office of the Attorney General may very well have hindered the investigations. Every police book manual will tell you that the hours after a crime is committed are the most crucial, as is the proper sealing of a crime scene for collection of evidence. Our institutions took years to act. One has to ask: how much evidence was destroyed or tampered with in the meantime?

And if any further proof is needed of how we are ruled by a group of snollygosters, consider this: we are letting people drown in the seas around us while, at the same time, selling our citizenship often to possible criminals. We do the barest minimum to help innocent people trying to escape from certain death while paving the way, as the Passport Papers have revealed, to people who are caught trying to escape from justice.

And perhaps on this one, the fault goes beyond the government. As a nation, we have become less sensitive to the sufferings of others and more open to the profit. This government showed guile at exploiting this sentiment and encouraged everyone to make hay while the sun shines. Of course, all this was a ploy, a sleight of hand to hide the fact that a very small group of people were taking the country to the cleaners.

If this government wanted to save money for a rainy day, then it should have eradicated rather than promoted corruption. We had state institutions assisting and abetting criminals and those bent on bending the laws, rather than protecting national interest. All this was done with the blessing of the people at the very top of power.

Malta needs to rediscover its values. We need to realign our moral compass, a compass which has purposely been tampered with by this government. Not all is lost. Civil society and a great number of our journalists and editors bore the torch in our hours of darkness. They showed us the way out of the abyss. Much more needs to be done. Justice needs to be served and institutions must be reclaimed. Not in the interest of the few but to serve and protect one and all.

Mario de Marco, Nationalist Party spokesperson on finance