Prime Minister Robert Abela has either been blackmailed or is utterly weak and, therefore, politically incompetent. There is no other way to explain how he could have decided to appoint Labour backbencher Rosianne Cutajar as chair of the parliamentary health committee.
He brought this black comedy of errors to a ‘conclusion’, apparently aided and abetted by deputy Prime Minister Chris Fearne and with the tacit consent of Opposition Leader Bernard Grech.
Fearne moved the motion in parliament proposing the appointment. Grech’s opposition did not object to it, though, having come out of its sweet slumber, the Nationalist Party later said it will boycott the health committee.
Its explanation of why it had failed to object to the motion in the first place was a vague: “it was filed by stealth”. The wording of the motion was clear enough, so where were the 28 Nationalist MPs? Not a single one stood up to object.
The prime minister, or his deputy, should have explained why they felt the need to ‘rehabilitate’ Cutajar, even if partially. For it was Abela who had accepted her resignation as junior minister pending an investigation by the commissioner for standards in public life over her involvement in a property deal with Yorgen Fenech.
It was Abela who then declared that she would remain on the backbench when the standards commissioner declared in a report there was a prima facie breach of ethics and he even recommended she be investigated by the tax authorities.
It was also the prime minister who authorised the two Labour MPs on the parliamentary standards committee to reprimand her, even if the letter sent to her fell far short of a proper reprimand.
Abela had also agreed that she should be removed from Malta’s delegation to the parliamentary assembly of the Council of Europe to avoid her having to answer to breach-of-conduct accusations.
In a statement reacting to comments by the PN on her latest nomination, the Labour Party declared Cutajar had paid the political price when she resigned from the executive.
The motion naming her health committee chairperson – which took literally seconds to be approved by parliament nem. con. – was the prime minister’s nihil obstat. She had been absolved.
But why? The prime minister would not say.
The Cutajar appointment proves that, for the people in power, ethical standards count for nothing
For the party in opposition, his attitude is indicative what to expect if he wins the next election. Announcing its decision to boycott the health committee she will be chairing, the PN has now insisted she is unfit for public office and unqualified for this new position.
But the opposition had been caught napping and that cannot be good for democracy. The people rightly expect it to keep the government on its toes and constantly breathe down its neck.
The Cutajar appointment proves that, for the people in power, ethical standards count for nothing. The decision to reward the MP is a direct affront to the office of the standards commissioner. It could also be seen as another attempt to discourage the incumbent, George Hyzler, who Labour is not happy with.
For the sake of good governance, may his resilience and determination to raise the bar not waver.
The standards commissioner, together with the ombudsman and the auditor general, have proved themselves to be the institutions on which law-abiding citizens must lean to keep the hope of an effective democracy alive.
Abela, on the other hand, has scored another victory for impunity, bad governance and disrespect for the institutions. His refrain of “let the institutions work” is now sounding more hollow than ever.