Byron Camilleri must step down

The theft of 200kg of drugs from the army barracks in Safi constitutes a serious breach of security that cannot be swept under the carpet as if nothing has happened.

Whoever carried out the job had the audacity of breaking into what should be a secure compound where entry and exit are supposed to be controlled.

When a MaltaToday photographer went to take some pictures of the army barracks from a public street, he was told to move on by the soldier on duty, let alone trying to get in.

But whoever carried out the heist felt no such pressure. They simply entered into the military base at 3am, broke the seals of the container and proceeded to offload 200kg of cannabis resin. It is incredible to even think about it.

Home Affairs Minister Byron Camilleri did the right thing to immediately suspend army commander, Brigadier Clinton O’Neil. In terms of responsibility for the lax security on the army base, the commander should be the first one to carry the can. However, disciplinary action against others directly responsible for those quarters must also follow. And the full force of the law should be brought down on anyone inside the army who may have been in cahoots with the criminals who stole the drugs.

It is also good that apart from the customary magisterial inquiry, an administrative inquiry was opened even though we are not privy to its terms of reference or who is conducting it.

But responsibility must not stop with the army. The minister must also shoulder political responsibility for this serious breach of security and resign from Cabinet.

It’s not enough that Camilleri immediately offered his resignation and repeated his offer on Monday and then on Tuesday. The Prime Minister refused Camilleri’s resignation without batting an eyelid. Robert Abela’s decision was subsequently endorsed by the Cabinet. It all feels like a mis en scene; a show put up to try and satiate a shocked public while preserving the status quo.

We did not expect otherwise from the Prime Minister – he seems to be done with promoting political correctness and high ethical standards. Today, Robert Abela is more concerned with self-preservation. In his war logic nobody on the Labour side can do wrong, or should be condemned for doing wrong and that also applies to the evident sins of the Muscat administration.

Camilleri should step down from Cabinet and take responsibility for the drug heist. It’s the least he could do following a string of controversies involving entities on his watch.

The latest incident not only exposes the army to ridicule but it also gives rise to serious concerns over its ability to provide peace of mind in security matters. To make matters worse, it comes hot on the heels of the New Year incident that saw Moroccans fleeing a parked aircraft on the runway. Two of the five men who escaped remain on the run.

But Camilleri’s offer to resign is also an exercise of two weights and two measures. It is illogical that the minister should offer his resignation over the theft of drugs but not when the Ombudsman issued a scathing report on the abuse that was perpetrated in prison on the watch of Alex Dalli. We cannot forget that Camilleri had defended Dalli to the hilt when reports of the latter’s draconian disciplinary measures in prison started to emerge.

It was only after the umpteenth suicide in prison that Camilleri eventually removed Dalli, only to put him in charge of the Malta-Libya migration coordination centre in Tripoli.

Neither when the suicide rate in prison was rising back then, nor when the Ombudsman published his report recently, did the minister feel the need to offer his resignation.

Unfortunately, inconsistency, refusal to shoulder political responsibility, brushing aside wrongdoing and deriding critics, journalists and the judiciary, have become the hallmarks of Abela’s administration.