A question of consistency

Since winning the election just over three months ago, Prime Minister Joseph Muscat has courted controversy with a series of appointments and decisions that appear, at moments, to contradict many of the campaigns his own party had undertaken when still in Opposition.

It was ominous, for instance, that the Chinese company selected to undertake the feasibility study for the proposed Gozo bridge would turn out to have been blacklisted by the World Bank... just like another firm, Lahmeyer International, whose involvement in the BWSC contract was savagely criticised by the Labour Party in 2010.

At a glance it appears incongruous (and inauspicious) that a political party would first criticise the government for employing an international firm without conducting the necessary due diligence... and then go on to do more or less exactly the same thing when in government, only three months after winning an election.

But in this case, the anomaly is greatly compounded by another revelation. It now emerges that the same Labour government has also retained David Spiteri Gingell, a former Enemalta CEO, as a government consultant in the energy sector, despite having been likewise critical of the previous government's appointment of the same Spiteri Gingell in the same role.

This is astonishing, in view of the use made by the Labour Party's media a few years ago of the many question marks surrounding Spiteri Gingell's connections to the controversial BWSC project.

Admittedly, the extent of Spiteri Gingell's actual expertise in the energy sector is not really open to doubt. All the same, the government owes an explanation for how it would change its outlook on this same sector so radically in a mere three months since it came to power.

Without meaning to revisit old controversies today, it remains a fact that Spiteri Gingell was deeply involved in practically all the most controversial aspects of the Delimara power station extension project, having been a member of the adjudicating committee that awarded the contract to the Danish firm in the first place, which also appointed Lahmeyer International as consultant, while approving the legislative change that raised Malta's emissions level to accommodate the BWCS bid... among many other developments which had elicited furious criticism by the Labour Party at the time.

One therefore cannot remain silent when the same political party which cried foul over corruption allegations involving various aspects of this arrangement would so soon after the event take decisions which are ultimately extensions of the same general approach adopted by the previous government.

To understand the extent of the volte-face by the present administration, one need only revisit statements and articles written about David Spiteri Gingell in the Labour press up until around two years ago.

Among other things, the Labour Opposition reacted furiously when Spiteri Gingell accepted a job with Vassallo Builders, correctly pointing out a glaring conflict of interest (Vassallo Builders were also BWSC's local contractor).

It is therefore little short of incredible that the same Labour Party, now in government, would so cavalierly give the impression that all its previous criticism was simply no longer relevant: in other words, that the Labour government should be free to do the same thing that it had criticised the Nationalist government for doing only two years ago... and expect not to face any criticism at all.

This brings us to the uncomfortable role the Opposition now finds itself occupying. Having previously defended both the BWSC contract and the appointment of Spiteri Gingell as government consultant, the Nationalist Party cannot now complain when the Labour Party does the same thing in government.

Once again, this exposes a serious flaw in Malta's two-party system, which so often resembles a cosy arrangement in which both sides are equally guilty of the same shortcomings and therefore must remain silent in the face of maladministration.

Meanwhile Labour's decision to retain Spiteri Gingell - which can ultimately be justified on the grounds of experience and know-how, even if it remains a gross act of hypocrisy - simply pales into insignificance compared with the energy ministry's refusal to publish a copy of the contract or declare what remuneration he is being paid for his services.

This would be outrageous, even if it wasn't for the fact that the same information was released separately in the form of a parliamentary question answered by environment minister Leo Brincat: a classic case of the left hand not knowing what the right hand is doing.

Leaving aside the impression of miscommunication and general confusion between ministries - which is after all understandable, given that the government is still finding its feet - what emerges is a sense of different weights and measures, which would hold the previous administration to higher standards than the present when it comes to transparency and accountability.

And yet transparency and accountability were major planks in the Labour Party's election campaign. In the years and months before the election, Joseph Muscat had quite rightly lambasted the Gonzi administration for keeping such details as remuneration to consultants under wraps.

Now that he is prime minister, he must hold his own government to the same standards to which he once held the Nationalist administration. It is a simple question of consistency.