When the powers-that-be do not like what they are being told, they either ignore it completely and look the other way or shoot the messenger. It happened pre-2013 and continues to happen now, post-2013.

Look at what had occurred at the now defunct Malta Environment and Planning Authority when the Nationalist Party was in government and compare it with what took place just a few days ago at the Lands Authority. In both instances, those on the receiving end are known to be or, at least, were supporters of the party in power.

Charlene Muscat is a former Labour mayor of Mqabba who used to be a reporter at One TV. Until very recently, she headed the Lands Authority’s internal audit directorate. In her annual audit report, she complained she had not been allowed to attend board meetings, as she is entitled to do, and that documents were being withheld from her.

The state advocate agreed with her about attendance at board meetings but the board would not budge, a failing the audit head considered to directly impact good governance and transparency.

Things had been hotting up for quite some time, it seems, escalating in summer 2020 and erupting late last month when Muscat was “redeployed” to another role within the public service after serving at Lands since 2018.

For politicians, the best cure for a pain in the neck is amputation.

Another pain in the neck, Carmel Cacopardo, who had militated within the Nationalist Party for a good 30 years before severing ties and who now chairs ADPD, had a very similar experience years earlier.

As an investigator within MEPA’s internal audit office, he called a spade a spade, authoring reports that subjected the planning watchdog to harsh criticism.

This evidently did not go down well with the Nationalist environment  minister of the time and with the regulator’s chairman the same minister had appointed.

So, they decided not to reinstate him when his contract expired, citing conflict of interest as he had publicly questioned the credentials of the newly pointed director for environment protection, a post for which Cacopardo had applied.

Cacopardo’s direct boss, the audit officer, backed him up and even threatened to resign if the decision was implemented.

The matter was resolved when the government accepted a recommendation by the ombudsman to have the audit office fall under his wing administratively, giving it more autonomy.

Both instances convey one clear message: politicians and their cronies detest transparency and accountability and would stop at nothing to have it their way.

The same people hand-picked to fulfil sensitive roles such as internal auditors or investigators become expendable, unceremoniously dumped when their reports are not music to the ears of those who consider themselves to be their political masters.

Even those occupying high office enjoying security of tenure, like the ombudsman and the auditor general, are not immune to attempts at ‘manhandling’. A glaring example was the ombudsman’s decision to investigate a promotion process within the Armed Forces of Malta.

Audits free of any string pulling from above serve to keep the authorities on their toes. They expose instances of failure to derive good value for public money and lack of observation of laws and regulations.

But when the truth becomes inconvenient for those in positions of power, they tend to find creative ways of strangling the process by which they may be held accountable.

The Lands Authority’s bitter experience once again clearly demonstrates that more foolproof systems need to be in place for governance to function effectively.