While trying to say nothing to condemn Johann Buttigieg, the prime minister said something interesting. Robert Abela suggested that what Buttigieg did was part of a ‘mentality’ that he wanted to eradicate.

I say ‘suggested’ because Abela didn’t quite pin the ‘mentality’ on Buttigieg. As with most things Abela says these days, he has to work with suggestions and intimations, let us fill in the gaps of his argument. Spelling things out would expose the contradictions.

So let’s recapitulate. Buttigieg is found to have exchanged WhatsApp messages with Yorgen Fenech. This is in 2019, when Fenech is already publicly named as the owner of 17 Black, a secret company associated with money laundering and bribery. At the time, Buttigieg was the chief of the Planning Authority and in these messages he showed himself open to going into business with Fenech, while also giving Fenech advice based on what Buttigieg knew by virtue of his involvement in planning.

Buttigieg is now head of the Malta Tourism Authority. But Abela refuses to sack him. He echoes Buttigieg’s defence that, in fact, he did not enter into business with Fenech (a certain police arrest got in the way).

As for the intent to go into business, and the conversation suggesting the planning chief didn’t quite have the public interest on his mind, Abela evaded those issues.

However, to slip out of answering, Abela spoke generically of a ‘mentality’ in the public service. He said he’s given instructions to all CEOs of public entities that they should not enter into private business. It’s this ‘mentality’ that he is working to change.

Abela sounded as though we should be thankful that he is cleaning up retrograde attitudes. But really he’s made things sound worse than they had previously seemed.

If the problem is a mentality, Abela is suggesting the issue goes beyond Buttigieg, who turns out, it seems, to be representative of an entire CEO class. If all CEOs needed to be told something that we should take as obvious, how many others have been in private business?

Let’s take a step back. If this is a problem of a collective mentality, then whose mentality are we talking about? Abela left this vague. Is he gaslighting ‘national culture’ for his administration’s sins?

Let’s clear it up. If it’s a mentality, it’s certainly not a national one: the collective reaction to Buttigieg’s conduct has been of indignation, disgust and calls for him to be fired.

If it’s an administrative one, it doesn’t go back into the mists of time. Government publications since 1994 have been explicit. People in the public service are expected to declare any private business interests to their superiors (indeed, ask for their permission) and to declare them soon after acquiring them.

Abela is claiming to change a ‘mentality’ that Labour itself introduced. Is that what he means? If not, then what?- Ranier Fsadni

As for the ethos public officials are supposed to represent, the values include loyalty to the public interest and fairness – two values that are absent in Buttigieg’s conversation with Fenech (putting to one side honesty and integrity).

Please, no pedantry about special rules for CEOs. Buttigieg is a public service employee. Besides, tone for the public service is set, as always, from the top.

No squawks, either, about what pre-2013 administrations actually did or didn’t do. That’s irrelevant. What matters is that these principles were known and, if anyone violated them, they could be punished on their basis.

In 2021, however, Buttigieg is claiming he did nothing wrong. The prime minister is backing him – by not firing him. By insisting that Buttigieg did no business, both suggest that would have been bad but, apparently, it’s not bad to intend to do something bad.

Notice what’s happening here. Normally, the standard of political accountability is higher than that of the law. That is, you take responsibility for misconduct that might not be in itself illegal. Here, the same prime minister who tells us to give him a break, because he wants to improve the ‘mentality’, is insisting on a lower political standard.

The question is: when did this mentality – that it was ok for CEOs to enter into private business – enter the public service? Abela owes us an answer.

Did the codes of conduct change post 2013? Up till then, what Buttigieg showed he was open to would have been ruled out.

If the codes of conduct were not changed, then Buttigieg violated them. So why is Abela sticking by him? Why is he suggesting the problem is mentality?

If Buttigieg didn’t violate a code of conduct, then there’s been a change we should be told about.

Perhaps there was one. We have now seen several cases where people at the very top of the public service have been found to be conducting private business, often with a dark shadow cast on those businesses, companies and the method of acquiring them.

We’ve learned about Keith Schembri and James Piscopo, former chief at transport and then lands. Buttigieg himself has a track record that this newspaper has indicated. Besides his conversations with Fenech, there is also his involvement in the decision to hire Konrad Mizzi as adviser to the MTA after Mizzi resigned in disgrace from cabinet. And there are other questions about Buttigieg’s business interests, which have not been cleared up.

It seems, therefore, that Abela is claiming to change a ‘mentality’ that Labour itself introduced. Is that what he means? If not, then what?

And how can he succeed in changing the mentality to one of a public service that earns everyone’s trust? He’s shutting down the possibility of CEOs conducting private business openly. Yet, he refuses to condemn the attitudes that lead to it  and which undermine the very idea of a public interest.

ranierfsadni@europe.com