I once heard someone compare the length of the term of survival of a party in power to a bucket. Upon election, the bucket is full of the public trust that elected them to Government. Every wrongdoing, episode of mismanagement or unpopular measure, carried out while in office, drains that trust, and when the bucket is finally emptied, that Government’s time is up.
The Nationalist Party’s bucket lasted for almost 26 years, interrupted only by Alfred Sant’s 22 month hiccough between 1996 and 1998. The bucket finally ran out in March 2013, and Joseph Muscat’s rebranded Labour Party was elected with a bucket brimming with trust. Two years on, the level of trust in the bucket is nowhere near it was then. We have been regaled with a succession of incidents which are denting Muscat’s previously smooth facade, the most recent being the Cafe Premier scandalous saga, and the murky dealings leading to the Azerbaijan oil hedging deal for Enemalta. These are serious cases and the public and media attention they are receiving following the damning reports by the National Auditor are amply justified, especially considering the personal involvement of the Prime Minister, his shadowy Chief of Staff, and a senior Cabinet Minister. Any further comment here would therefore be superfluous.
It is another case that has caught my attention, and prompted me to contribute my opinion here once again. Although seemingly trivial, it epitomises the mountain of evidence that has already been accumulated showing up the pre-electoral mantras of the Malta Taghna Lkoll, Meritokrazija and Tista ma tkunx maghna, imma tista tahdem maghna slogans for the shams and cons that they were. It is mind-boggling to read that a dog-handler needed to be recruited on a position of trust, a process whereby persons are temporarily recruited in the Civil Service on the basis of enjoying the personal trust of the political hierarchy.
When an appointment is made on a position of trust basis, no public call for applications is issued and the recruitment is not necessarily based on the person’s qualifications or experience. (The Times of Malta – 12th March 2015). The same article also carried the reactions of the Government – A ministry spokeswoman said the person in question was an expert who had been employed to train dogs to sniff out drugs in prison, and others for search and rescue operations.
These statements are paradoxical to say the least. Why did this purported ‘expert’ need to be recruited through a process that does not need ‘qualifications or experience’? A position of trust is also a definite term contract which does not become indefinite ever. Why recruit a person to a position that the Government is claiming to be so crucial, on a contract of such a temporary nature. Surely, such a ‘sensitive’ role justifies a procedure whereby the employment would be of a more permanent and stable nature, and not of the notorious prekarjat type. Even more surely, this ‘expert’, with all the qualifications and experience implied in that term, would have had no difficulty in being successful in such a regular recruitment process.
Thinking about this has led me to believe that this dog-handler, just like the myriad trusted people who entered the civil service on positions of trust, enjoy only one form of trust – they are trusted as being well on the right side of the partisan fence. They came in through the back door, and meritocracy flew out of the window, having served its purpose as the hollow promise which it was.
And what did Premier Joseph Muscat have to say about this in the same article? He “ … defended the appointments, drawing comparisons to the previous administration. He said the Nationalist government had […] made “loads” of such appointments …”. No logical or rational explanation there. Just the puerile antithesis of what the pre-electorally vaunted ‘change’ should have stood for.
All I can say is – Enjoy it while it lasts, Premier Muscat. Your bucket is fast draining itself dry.
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