Robert Abela declared recently: “I am against any public inquiry on any subject.” To make sure we heard right, he echoed: “I am against the concept of a public inquiry”, responding to questions about a public inquiry into Electrogas.
We hear daily revelations of the unbelievable shamelessness and limitless greed of a core group of hyper-wealthy businessmen, enabled by Konrad Mizzi and his close associates. The stench emanating from Electrogas is unbearable.
Yet Abela, the prime minister of a European Union state, is “against any public inquiry on any subject”. It just beggars belief. Public inquiries into matters of public concern, as Electrogas is, are major instruments of accountability within the administrative justice system. Being held accountable is hardly Abela’s priority.
Public inquiries are held in the majority of democracies. The UK held 68 inquiries between 1990 and 2017, spending more than half a billion pounds – for one simple reason. Inquiries change things for the better – from gun control in the Dunblane inquiry, to industrial regulation in the Piper Alpha inquiry, to tackling institutional racism through the Stephen Lawrence inquiry.
Public inquiries are so valued in the UK that Westminster recommended a permanent inquiries unit be created within the Cabinet office. The Institute for Government published a detailed report titled ‘How public inquiries can lead to change’ in 2017. It seems Abela has not read that one.
Why are public inquiries such a threat to Abela? Why is he so terrified of them? Because they uncover the truth.
Public inquiries are meant to answer three basic questions. First: what really happened? Second: why did it happen and who and what was to blame? And finally: what can we learn and do to prevent future similar disasters?
Abela must have a pretty clear idea of what happened with Electrogas.
From the little we know it looks pretty awful.
The SOCAR deal for gas procurement lost the country €40 million in one year alone.
Mizzi personally pardoned Electrogas from paying €40 million in excise tax on that gas, passing the bill on to Enemalta.
The €10 million penalty for falling behind schedule has not been paid because Mizzi allowed Electrogas to defer it.
Most galling, the same group of hyper-wealthy businessmen behind the project awarded themselves over €16 million in ‘success fees’ before the power station started generating electricity.
No wonder Abela is resisting a public inquiry.
“When you ask for a public inquiry you send a message that the institutions of the country are not working,” he said.
What utter nonsense!
Whose side are you on, prime minister?
Is the UK spending millions of pounds on public inquiries because their institutions do not work?
Abela’s contempt for the public is so profound that, through a combination of incompetence and pride, he turns himself into a laughing stock.
“I told the leader of the opposition that he is 24 hours late in asking the police commissioner to investigate or request a magisterial inquiry... now 240 hours have passed.
“One cannot accept that a public inquiry takes the work of the judiciary.”
Abela wilfully or ignorantly confuses public inquiries with criminal investigations. Public inquiries are not there to establish criminal or civil liability.
In an article in The Scotsman (July 25, 2017), Hugh Pennington wrote that “inquiries can blame but they’re not courts”.
When an infective outbreak occurred in Wales, the public inquiry apportioned blame for the deaths that occurred to regulators, inspectors and other authorities. The butcher who sold the contaminated meat was found guilty in a court of law.
Abela proclaimed: “I am a lawyer and believe in the rule of law.” Is not Chapter 273, Inquiries Act, and, before it, the Committees of Inquiry Act of 1948, law? So why is he viciously undermining it?
He would not miss an opportunity to win cheap political points. “The opposition’s call for a public inquiry means two things: either they want to create a ‘show’ or they do not trust our institutions,” he said.
A total non-sequitur.
You do not ask for a public inquiry because you do not trust the institutions; quite the opposite. But Abela distorts and confuses the role of public inquiries. He is blinded by his hysterics at the political damage that the current inquiry is causing Labour.
He resorts to a fusion of mangled reasoning, deficient legal understanding and cheap partisan discourse. He is in a corner and flailing aimlessly, denigrating established democratic processes that uncover the truth. And the truth is that Joseph Muscat’s Labour government has sold the country for the benefit of a few.
In undermining and sniping at public inquiries, Abela is also discrediting the ongoing inquiry into the murder of Daphne Caruana Galizia. Before it has even concluded, his interference exacerbates the undermining of public scrutiny and public trust in it. His aim is to rubbish its conclusions before it has even wrapped up.
That his government will fail to implement any of the inquiry’s eventual recommendations is a given. In taking so much trouble to cripple the inquiry, Abela denies the country the prospect of preventing a repetition of the ghastly murder and denies the public its right to know what happened.
Through Muscat’s and Mizzi’s antics, the country has been robbed of at least €100 million on Electrogas – that we know of. That money would have paid for 4,000 nurses for a year. If we had that many nurses we would not be cancelling operations, worrying about who to admit to intensive care and who to leave in nursing homes without specialist care. But Abela does not want the public to know how and by whom the country has been swindled.
Whose side are you on, prime minister? Are you on the side of the Gasans, Paul Apap Bologna, Yorgen Fenech, Brian Tonna, Chen Cheng, Keith Schembri, Mizzi and Muscat. Or on the side of the honest workers, whose diligence truly drives the economy and who trusted Labour with running the country.
Kevin Cassar, professor of surgery and ex PN candidate