Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/926403
11 maltatoday SUNDAY 14 JANUARY 2018 News How we got the data All PQs were scraped from pq.gov.mt and the frequency with which keywords such as out of stock, immigrants or immigration, direct order and others appeared in the question title were recorded for each legislature. The 2008 financial crisis, and the burden placed on the economy by En- emalta could be the reason why then Finance Minister Tonio Fenech had the largest number of PQs directed towards him. During the legislature, the country voted in favour of divorce, signal- ling the beginning of its shift towards ac- cepting more liberal social policy. The increase in water and electricity tar- iffs was also a hot political issue, with La- bour calling a national protest against the rising cost of essential items. The data shows that the legislature was also characterised by long parliamentary breaks partly resulting from internal strife the government was experiencing in par- liament. 2013-2017: A whole new ball game The Labour Party was returned to power in 2013 after its short-lived stint between 1996 and 1998. The legislature was characterised by economic and social reforms, leading to a shift in the national discourse from issues such as water and electricity and immigra- tion to traffic as the country started to ex- perience previously unimaginable levels of congestion on its roads. While the Labour administration had succeeded in addressing issues such as wa- ter and electricity tariffs and out of stock medicines, the legislature was dominated by accusations of corruption and impro- priety on the part of government officials, which reached a climax with the Panama Papers revelations in April 2016. The government came under harsh criticism from the Opposition over a lack of transparency related to projects un- dertaken in conjunction with the private sector including the concession granted to Vitals Global Healthcare and the agree- ment signed with the American University of Malta. The increased use of direct or- ders and positions of trust also took centre stage, as the Opposition accused Muscat's government of buying the support of the electorate. Methodology Parliamentary questions for the three legislatures were obtained from the pq.gov.mt using web scraping software. Key words within PQ titles, questions and answered were then searched for in order to obtain the statistics cited in the report. While the utmost care was taken to en- sure that the data is representative of the real picture, it is not intended as an ex- haustive analysis. Gozo Channel Air Malta ARMS Enemalta Police Tender Transfer Position / Person of Trust Direct Order Consultant / Consultancy Water & Electricity Out of Stock Medicines Immigration Traffic Frequency Commercially sensitive information cited in reply 2003-2008 2003-2008 2003-2008 2003-2008 800 700 700 600 600 160 50 100 150 140 120 100 80 60 40 500 500 400 400 300 300 200 200 100 100 0 0 2008-2013 2008-2013 2008-2013 2008-2013 2013-2017 2013-2017 2013-2017 2013-2017 Helping constituents: The number of times ministers were asked questions regarding individuals or entities, the details of whom were passed on separately 2430 2904 3636