Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1007543
maltatoday | WEDNESDAY • 25 JULY 2018 7 NEWS ANALYSIS credence to the Egrant story, by absolving the Muscats from owning a secret compa- ny which received funds from Azerbaijan, the Egrant inquiry now risks deflating the whole Panamagate scandal. The wider implications of this may be even more sinister. The public may now be even more sceptical of media report- ing government impropriety, even when this is accompanied by documentation and evidence. While providing definitive proof is the task of the police and other institutions, Egrant is a cautionary tale against politically weaponising any claim made in the media. The only silver lining is that widespread consensus on respecting the conclusions of the inquiry led by Aaron Bugeja should also presage widespread consensus on the results of other pending inquiries initi- ated by Simon Busuttil. The latter may well partly redeem his place in history, if it turns out that his allegations on Keith Schembri, Konrad Mizzi and other pro- tagonists of Panamagate do warrant a criminal investigation. For in this aspect Busuttil has done what the government failed to do in the first place; bring judicial and political closure to the institutional fracas brought about by Panamagate. The conflation between Egrant's ownership and Panamagate has only made this task harder. A millstone in the PN In this sense while removing Simon Bu- suttil from spokesperson for good govern- ance was justified because every time he speaks on this issue he will remind people of the Egrant debacle, Adrian Delia may have jumped the gun by asking him to suspend himself from the parliamentary group. While Delia seems keen on asserting his authority in the party, he cannot magically erase a moment in political history which saw the party (including a number of De- lia backers) uniting behind Busuttil's good governance banner. Yet talk of the party breaking up may be premature as self- preservation may ultimately prevail. In this context, the greatest risk is that while Panamagate triggered an institu- tional paralysis which resulted in legiti- mate outrage, the Egrant inquiry may trig- ger a paralysis not just in the Opposition but in Maltese society as a whole when faced with serious allegations of impro- priety, simply because one major and cru- cial allegation turned out to be fake. For many it may well be a case of "once bit- ten twice shy." This political climate may even result in widespread disengagement from politics and civil society activism. This may possibly make the country more vulnerable to corruption and political im- propriety. Egrant deception Busuttil's approach suggests that he was willing to make a leap of faith based on what was reported on Caruana Galizia's blog