Early in 1975 – and I appreciate that this is before many readers of this newspaper were born – I was invited to submit written opinions and evidence about corruption in British government life. More than invited, in fact, because my boss was a member of the commission set up to investigate and report on it and he, not I, would get the credit for whatever useful contributions I may have made.
Hence I found myself writing papers on the definitions and – more importantly – the interpretations and practices of bribery and corruption, of the effects of both on MPs and local councillors and the attempts (many of them, it was apparent to me, no more than half-hearted) to cover them up.
My qualification, for want of a better word, was that I was at the time an ‘investigative reporter’ on the Daily Mirror. It was not a term I applied to myself because I believed that all reporters should be investigative but I had spent most of the previous five years digging into the dodgy financial and business affairs of government ministers, local councillors and senior civil servants. So that counted as ‘experience’.
The Royal Commission on Standards of Conduct in Public Life was published 18 months later and was, albeit briefly, a bestseller.
So, I will pre-empt those readers who believe they can excuse Maltese corruption on grounds that “it happens in England, too”. Maybe, indeed, it still happens there. It is not my problem; nor is it yours.
Malta, in fact, figured in the back-story of the corruption involved but didn’t make it into the report. And it may be no surprise to learn that the general findings concluded that “most of the serious crime has centred around planning decisions… and development contracts”.
An architect rejoicing in the name John Garlick Llewellyn Poulson had been awarded the contract to build, with British government money, a general hospital on Gozo. Fair enough, on the face of it: he was running the biggest architectural practice in Europe, if not in the world, designing hospitals, among other things from the Middle East to Mexico.
He was given the contract by Reginald Maudling, at the time secretary of state for the colonies (and later deputy prime minister) who failed to mention that he was also the chairman of one of Poulson’s companies.
But first they needed planning permission for the site and, this being Malta, it meant bribing an MP or two. Poulson sent his local developer £5,000 – equivalent to around £100,000 (€118,000) today – to grease one or more palms. He also foolishly wrote a note, a copy of which he showed me, saying how pleased he was to learn that the man was dealing with his Maltese MPs in much the same way as he dealt with them himself, back home.
My qualification [to submit opinions about corruption in British government life] was that I was at the time an ‘investigative reporter’ on the Daily Mirror- Revel Barker
(Partisan readers may wish to know that the hospital was conceived and planned under George Borg Olivier’s government and building started during Dom Mintoff’s.)
Before being sentenced to five years imprisonment (later increased to seven – he served three), Poulson told me: “I was only doing what everybody else was doing.” He said that when he approached people for any type of permission, the first question they asked was: “what’s in it for me?” And he said: “Throughout my life, I have believed that it was better to give than to receive.”
If this story rings no bells among the Maltese today, it is because the majority of them still have deaf ears.
It should chime with the rumour – I say no more than this – that if you want to build a block of eight flats, you can get permission easily if you offer one of them to somebody “in authority”.
That’s how it was in Maltese (and British) politics half a century ago and how it is in today’s Malta, where everybody believes that (a majority of) candidates stand for parliament and a salary of €21,000, the lowest in the EU, not out of altruism but for what they can make on the side for themselves.
And, oh yes, I know that Malta has a Commissioner of Standards in Public Life. According to the website, he “investigates breaches of ethical standards by ministers, members of parliament and persons of trust and contributes to the improvement of standards of behaviour in public life”. You think?
“If the commissioner finds that a minister, parliamentary secretary, member of parliament or person of trust has acted improperly… (he) can issue an admonishment or demand an apology from the person in question.
“The [parliamentary] committee [for standards in public life] can also make a recommendation to the appropriate authorities (including the House of Representatives, if the subject of the commissioner’s report is a member of parliament) that further measures be taken to remedy the breach of conduct.”
The question has to be asked: has the commissioner not read a newspaper in the past four years or is he, in fact, a watchdog with no bark and no teeth?