[ANALYSIS] From a PR stunt to hara-kiri: Malta’s passport charity

A €5 million donation to Puttinu Cares announced by the Prime Minister during a charity marathon on prime time TV on Good Friday may well have exposed him as an unscrupulous politician who does not miss one opportunity to increase his popularity but the negative reaction from a part of the PN’s front bench may have maximised the PM’s political advantage. For by shooting down a donation whose end result was alleviating suffering, some Opposition MPs seemed oblivious to the inevitable political fallout.

Charity, business and politics

Televised charity marathons, where businesses and politicians seek to wash away a nasty reputation by announcing hefty donations or by lending their face to collection efforts, have been a regular feature on Maltese TV for the past two decades.

While neither Lawrence Gonzi nor Eddie Fenech Adami had ever intervened in live shows to donate state monies, politicians regularly participate in the Strina fun fair, and the Good Causes Fund subsidised by gaming money was the subject of political controversy over donations made in strategic districts.

That fine line blurring Public Relations and charity is not limited to Malta. Even the revered Mother Theresa was questioned for accepting donations from Papa and Baby Doc Duvalier, the gangster tyrants of Haiti.

Cynics may note that Muscat’s donation to Puttinu Cares is worth more than a hundred propaganda billboards. For it projects the PM as an agent of benevolence towards those who are most in need.

In this way Muscat has once again assumed the image of a father figure. One may also suspect that this provided the PM some respite from the Pilatus bank controversy especially after confirmation of his attendance in Ali Sadr’s wedding in Venice.

Yet the government’s donation which quadrupled the €1.6 million collected from the public has surely made a real difference for the relatives of cancer patients whose expenses are not covered by our welfare state. Puttinu Cares will thus be able to build 30 apartments in central London for relatives of Maltese patients seeking treatment abroad.

Yet this raises another question: Would it not be better if all such expenses are covered by the state without much noise and funfair? Why not replace charity with a small increase in proportional taxation?

Muscat’s big society

While theoretically one may well argue that social justice is best served by income redistribution from the haves to the have nots through the joyless act of paying taxes, the act of giving through charity does unite the nation for a common cause.

One should not underscore the importance of charity not just as a way of making up for inevitable shortcomings in the welfare system but as a hallmark of what former British conservative Prime Minister David Cameron coined as the “big society.”

This is a concept in social policy – mostly advocated by conservatives – whereby a significant amount of responsibility for the running of a society is devolved to local communities and volunteers.

Charity marathons add that personal touch to social policy, by enabling donors to feel part of something bigger. That is why shows like l-Istrina and the more somber Xarabank collection for Puttinu Cares have become a national institution.

These events also establish a direct link between donors and the NGO delivering a visible service to those in need.

Put simply, people can see on their TV screens where their money is going and they can also empathise with those who are suffering.

According to a survey by the World Giving Index of the Charity Aid Foundation, Malta is the third most generous country in the whole world. This survey, based on 2016, places Malta in third position out of 139 countries, with 73% of the population giving donations to charity.

By intervening directly on TV to dish a substantial donation derived from public funds, the PM has clearly understood how these charity events have become veritable symbols of modern Maltese identity of which generosity is seen as a hallmark.

So, one may ask, “What’s wrong in the PM putting himself at the forefront of this national effort?” The answer to that would be that he has also reaped precious political capital in the process of doing so.

One can counter this argument by saying that through this donation, the PM was ensuring that the state does not abscond on its duty to help the vulnerable by letting the NGO in question rely on private money.

In fact, the amount of money given by government was four times the sum collected from private citizens.

This may well consolidate a hybrid welfare model in which public monies are used to supplement donations for private charities.

While there is a risk of making welfare initiatives more dependent on charity boosted by occasional top ups by the state, one has to consider that this happens in a country with a national health care system which is already in place. Charity marathons simply address realities which go beyond the scope of the state’s obligation to secure free basic health care for all.

Yet one can still see a pattern forming.

In March 2017 Muscat had already intervened through a life call during a similar marathon to collect funds for a home for ALS sufferers during which the PM pledged to cover the annual expenses of the home.

The model is advocated by ALS sufferer and volunteer Bjorn Formosa who thinks that “Government must be there many more times on Xarabank to give its backup to many more initiatives, to help all fellow countrymen. This time we have tackled cancer, next time it will be neurological conditions, autism and many more! May many more organisations and people of good faith come forward with their initiatives to help improve the sufferers’ quality of life.”

The risk in this is that of establishing a pattern in which government starts exploiting charity as a PR opportunity in what can be seen as a win-win situation for both the NGOs involved and the government of the day.

Robin Hood Muscat?

In some ways hiving off monies from the passport scheme to accommodation for cancer patients may also be seen as an act of redistribution from an exclusive scheme benefitting the global rich to Maltese people in need.

Some may cringe at the provenance of these funds from a scheme which raises ethical questions, not just because some of those who have acquired citizenship actually do have a dubious reputation, but because in itself the scheme creates two categories of migrants; those who can buy citizenship and asylum seekers who may at best qualify for humanitarian protection or refugee status.

In fact, there was no need to tie the donation to the IIP scheme. It may well have come directly from the government’s surplus. So, this raises the question on whether the donation is an attempt to legitimise the scheme.

Still in this case the same qualms of conscience should apply to monies derived from lotteries and gaming to the Good Causes Fund administered by different administrations. After all this sector has also attracted dubious companies linked to organised crime.

L’etat c’est moi

Whatever one thinks about it, the IIP programme is actually generating public funds which have to be spent. It is this fact which makes the PM’s direct intervention in a charity show somewhat problematic.

For although all was done for the benefit of a good cause, the PM has chosen to lend his own face to a donation financed from the public coffers.

One can cynically observe that Muscat opportunistically used the same set up exploited by private companies to use charity events as PR opportunities. This list of donors included speculators who have repeatedly shown disregard for the law of the land.

But unlike these businesses who are donating from their own funds and profits, the PM was effectively dishing out public money.

Muscat may have behaved like a benevolent monarch disposing of public wealth at his whim, fully knowing that any criticism for doing so would backfire on those who make it.

In this sense a Saturday morning tweet by Finance Minister Edward Scicluna which was later removed, is very revealing. For it suggests a degree of discomfort with the way the donation was made.

In this tweet the Finance Minister denied that the funds were derived from the IIP fund even if this further helped in confirming the impression that Muscat’s action was more of a personal action than a collegial one by government.

For how on earth can the Finance Minister not know the provenance of the funds allocated to charity?

Scicluna also suggested that these funds derived from the budget and were being spent on a deserving project.

In this way he inadvertently proposed a more sober mechanism for channelling public funds to worthy causes.

If IIP funds are used, it may make more sense to establish a percentage derived from such funds, which can go to charity. The choice of beneficiaries should than be made by an independent board and not determined by the PM.

Yet this is unlikely to happen.

For many last Friday’s Xarabank served as the epitome of the big society where the state, private donors and NGOs work together for a common goal. Only a few cringed.

Acclaimed author Alex Vella Gera expressed this sentiment on his facebook wall noting that “Muscat used €5 million from the Maltese coffers to strengthen and do maintenance for his image.”

A political own goal

The few critical voices also included Simon Busuttil, Beppe Fenech Adami and Jason Azzopardi.

The inevitable backlash they faced raises an important question. Could they have foreseen the backlash or did they consciously speak out fully knowing the consequences?

The lack of tact shown by the MPs in question suggests that they either have a poor political judgment or have little regard on the political consequences of their actions on the fortunes of their party.

This in itself raises the question; don’t MPs also have a moral duty to voice concerns which may disturb the national consensus? This would make sense if the protagonists involved were backbenchers or third party exponents, not party spokespersons who are expected to weigh their words.

This is because any exponent of a party aspiring to win political power has to weigh his words before expressing a view which may be out of synch with that of Maltese society.

In fact, one is led to suspect that the PM’s PR stunt was also meant to solicit the kind of reaction expressed by the Opposition MPs.

Such comments have put the PN spokespersons on collision course with exponents of the voluntary sector.

ALS sufferer Bjorn Formosa took to his Facebook wall to express his uneasiness.

“Many may argue that the Government may take political advantage from the Live Announcement on Malta’s most followed TV programme but that’s not really important,” he noticed.

“The only important thing is that there are kids with cancer and families who will find adequate care and accommodation to deal with their immense suffering. Important is that when you and me will be in need, we will find the adequate care”.

In this case it was PN leader Adrian Delia – who also stands most to lose from the reckless comments of his MPs – who came across as moderate and reasonable in his criticism.

He did so by first identifying with public sentiment saying, “We must bind ourselves to build these apartments in London so that cancer sufferers will have a place to stay in during the worst of moments.”

Than on a more critical note he called on government to give space to civil society.

“Let’s leave charity to those who know it and value it the most, the thousands of volunteers, NGOs, people and big-hearted citizens who give all they can.”

In contrast Jason Azzopardi went as far as singling out Peppi Azzopardi “for allowing the PM to send a message that to cure cancer patients we need to sell passports” and he went even further by likening the PM’s action to the Italian Mafia boss Toto Riina’s own donations to charity money obtained through crime.

This criticism directed at the presenter was reminiscent of Alfred Sant’s recriminations on L-Istrina, which he boycotted for the simple reason that it was produced by Where’s Everybody, a company he accused of being sympathetic to the PN.

All three MPs also chose to focus their criticism on the IIP scheme, something that their own party has not yet committed to remove if elected in office.

Nationalist MP Beppe Fenech Adami, a cancer survivor, said he was “insulted and disgusted” by the donation, labelling it an attempt to justify the way the money was collected in the first place.

He said the implication was that passports need to be sold to the “corrupt” and to “criminals” in order for cancer patients to receive treatment.

Simon Busuttil insisted “we don’t have to sell our souls and our citizenship for you to do your duty and provide full health care to cancer patients.”

In many ways this episode sums up well the state of the nation; which is one where the Opposition’s exasperation and confused response to Muscat’s artful antics simply results in more egg on its face.