Are you comfortable with ministers being friends with the owner of 17 Black? Yes I am. Are you comfortable with ministers being friends with someone charged with murder? Yes, as long as that friendship stops when the person is charged. That is what I took from Robert Abela’s reply when last July he was asked for his views on the friendships held by cabinet members with Yorgen Fenech.

In that reply, Abela set parameters for what would constitute behaviour that would carry political responsibility by setting a cut-off date. He clearly asked that no one be embarrassed. For Abela, it seems a minister is capable of being embarrassed only if he had a friendship that continued after the friend is charged with murder.

Abela conveniently disregarded the implications of a friendship with 17 Black when it was known that Fenech was its owner.

His reply also implicates that the prime minister’s assessment of what would turn the public sentiment against him is if his minister remains close to a friend who is charged with murder, but not if he remains close to a friend embroiled in corruption.

This makes his reply, given only two months ago, even more important today when we are now told by the media that the minister for justice himself shared hundreds of messages with Yorgen Fenech in 2019.

Why is it ok for Zammit Lewis to have shared 700 chat conversations with the owner of 17 Black?- Therese Comodini Cachia

I do not know the content of those 700 chat messages and I know merely what was published in the newspapers. I am not here passing judicial judgement on Edward Zammit Lewis or on Fenech. I am only assessing the shallow standard that Abela has set for political ethical behaviour within his own cabinet.

Information in the public domain indicates that 17 Black is not just any company. It is the company allegedly involved in corruption and also the company from which Keith Schembri planned to make money.

It is the company linked to the energy deal which itself is riddled with its own allegations of corruption and which may very well have served as the motive behind the assassination of Daphne Caruana Galizia.

So when Abela drew the line of political responsibility for his cabinet by saying that he will defend any member who, prior to Fenech being charged with murder, had a relationship with Fenech, then he set the limbo stick for political responsibility low enough for all his ministers to be able to cheat the limbo dance by going over the stick rather than under it.

On July 1 Abela said that he expected ministers who were close to Fenech not to play a part in cabinet discussions concerning Fenech’s fate. This is the narrowest interpretation of ethical conduct and political responsibility that Labour prime ministers Joseph Muscat and Robert Abela seem to share.

Why would it be ok for Zammit Lewis or any other cabinet member to have shared some 700 chat conversations with the owner of 17 Black in the last year?

Is it the norm that cabinet ministers have about 700 chats a year on whatsapp, an encrypted account, with friends who are also lobbyists of government entities and who bid for major projects with the government?

Why hasn’t Abela questioned the tenure of Zammit Lewis as minister for justice now that he knows that the minister had this relationship at a time when the police were meant to be investigating the allegations on 17 Black?

Has Abela seen these chats or is he willing to close both eyes because he simply cannot afford to loose yet another member of his cabinet?

This is not a question of lack of judgement by Zammit Lewis. Whether it was merely lack of judgement on his part needs to be determined once the content of the chats is published. This is, however, a question of whether Abela is more similar to Joseph Muscat than what we originally thought.

Therese Comodini Cachia is a Nationalist MP

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