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2 maltatoday EXECUTIVE EDITOR Matthew Vella MANAGING EDITOR Saviour Balzan Letters to the Editor, MaltaToday, Vjal ir-Rihan, San Gwann SGN 9016 E-mail: dailynews@mediatoday.com.mt Letters must be concise, no pen names accepted, include full name and address maltatoday | SUNDAY • 6 DECEMBER 2020 Muscat's day in court Editorial AFTER a year of almost total silence from the former prime minister, expectations were for Joseph Muscat's return to the limelight last Friday. It cannot be said that he failed to deliver. Starting with a lengthy written admonition of the inquiry judg- es themselves, for 'deviating from their remit', and proceeding with a display of all the confidence and determination associated with the years before his downfall… one can certainly say that Joseph Muscat 'had his day in court'. But despite delivering such a spectacle, Muscat's triumphal return was in reality only skin-deep. His performance may have been confident; but his answers did not always live up to the bravado with which they were uttered. For instance: declarations such as: "I am shocked about what came out about Montenegro," or (about Schembri and Mizzi) "In truth, after the fact you start to doubt everyone. But I never saw anything but two people who worked hard", suggest a naivety that is visibly belied by the intelligent, elegant way he himself presented his arguments in court. For the first time ever, Muscat admitted he knew that 17 Black – revealed cryptically by Daphne Caru- ana Galizia in February 2017 – was a business matter held by Schembri and Yorgen Fenech, a red flag that his chief of staff was a business partner with the Elec- trogas shareholder. And yet, all Muscat uttered in the years he was PM were denials and untruths. Indeed, he failed to shed any light on when exactly he became aware that Yorgen Fenech and Keith Schembri were business partners in offshore companies; or on wheth- er Keith Schembri had continued attending security services meetings after suspicions fell on Yorgen Fenech. This itself may also be a reflection of his own crit- icism of the public inquiry itself: which – in this, but also in other sittings – has not always been of the high- est calibre. But it illustrates just how unwise it is to underesti- mate Joseph Muscat: even now, in in his disgraced ex- ile. That verbal admonition clearly served its purpose: just as he had done so often with his political adversar- ies, Muscat put the inquiry on the backfoot, and forced it onto the defensive. While this may resonate with Muscat loyalists – as, no doubt, did his traditional strategy using Nationalist sins to absolve his own failures – it does nothing to address the fact that the institutional rot (regardless how, or under which administration, it began) clearly continued on his watch. Perhaps the most regrettable aspect of his perfor- mance was in fact, that Muscat continues to downplay the risks posed to democracy by the intimacy of the political and business classes. "I will make a shocking statement," he said. "Every government in the world, including Malta has to be close to business. […] I wasn't just close to those businessmen, I was close to all of them. Thanks to this I saved thousands of jobs and I'm not ashamed of it." That statement is indeed as shocking as Muscat intended it to be. It ignores the fact that this same intimacy could have given certain businessmen the impression that they are above the law, and can get what they want in return for contributing to prosperity and growth. So while Muscat may have protected jobs, the fact remains that he also undermined good governance. Nonetheless, there remains some room to question whether the public inquiry – regardless of Friday's session – is truly achieving its purpose. It has to also be said that the inquiry lacks certain elements of visibility that characterise foreign equiv- alents. The sittings are not livestreamed, for example; nor are video recordings uploaded to a website, or distributed to the public in any other way. If this is a shortcoming of the government – or the board itself, which has not requested it – it testifies to the lack of experience Malta has had in truth and reconciliation exercises. Questions could also be asked about the identity of the witnessed being called – or not – to testify. Eye-rolling episodes of minor scandal, or the eliciting of helpful soundbites from people who were not func- tionaries in the bowels of the political machine, seem to add little to the ultimate quest of the inquiry. The upshot is that the inquiry, though well intentioned, often seems to be missing the wood for the trees. Apart from the specifics of the Daphne Caruana Galizia murder itself, what is also under investigation here is the same intimacy, between business and politics, that Muscat defends so eloquently. This is or, should be, Malta's Tangentopoli moment: exposing the historic consensus of bipartisan alterna- tion, where business donations build party machines in the form of insurance on future policy decisions. It is hard to disagree with Muscat when he says that history did not begin in 2013. And what happens when that system risks breaking down, because of one journalist's dogged pursuit of a few corrupt individuals? The murder of Daphne Caru- ana Galizia. And it has happened in ways that nobody, including those closest to the machinations of the State, could ever expect or suspect. So for all its flaws, the inquiry can still teach us that – without a strict system of checks and balances on power; without the restriction of partisanship in the actions of government; and without the recalibration of democratic administration in daily matters of the State – the only possible result will be corruption, illicit profit, bribery… or much worse. To do that, this inquiry needs a certain muscle, a certain depth, a profound political viewpoint of history and society that can guide it towards its quest for truth. And that means its inquisitors cannot just be be- holden simply to scandal or uncritical perspectives of the historical passage that took us to the times we are living. 5 December 2010 Students fees are 'crucial' – Rector THE Rector of the University of Malta has warned that setting up a fees system for univer- sity courses will be "crucial" if the institution is to generate more revenue for its development. In his pamphlet '2020 Vision or Optical Illu- sion', Professor Juanito Camilleri writes of his concern that the university's internal revenue stream "has not grown in absolute terms as one would have wished", pointing to a number of restrictions the University faces. These include the fact that — unlike univer- sities in the UK, for example — the University of Malta cannot charge neither EU nor Mal- tese students for day courses, and that fees for MATSEC exams, evening courses, and for non-EU students are regulated by Govern- ment. "The adoption of a system of fees for all courses and for all students in tandem with a scholarship scheme which covers both tuition fees and maintenance for EU nationals who are established residents of Malta is crucial," Camilleri said. The rector, formerly the CEO of telecoms group MeIita, said scholarships would offer both maintenance and tuition grants. "Local students can use their grant to finance or partially finance their education, reading the accredited programme of their choice in the licensed institution of their choice, be that located and Iicensed in Malta or not. "A system of indirect financing of higher education institutions, through cost- based fees, may be the most desirable way forward, at least to finance the teaching aspect of such institutions," he writes. Camilleri says that financing the expansion of the university and the Junior College sixth form require a 33% growth in revenue between 2011 and 2013 — amounting to €58 million in 2011, €66 million in 2010, and €72 million in 2013. In 2010, the University and Junior College were jointly allocated €49,000,000. Camilleri also cautioned against falling into the "age old trap of thinking that our tertiary education system is merely there to create em- ployees, and that our industry is merely there to provide jobs." ... Quote of the Week "The Maltese State did not start in 2013, and many of the shortcomings known today are the result of decades of legacies by various Governments." Former PM Joseph Muscat in the Daphne Caruana Galizia public inquiry MaltaToday 10 years ago