Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/949290
12 maltatoday SUNDAY 4 MARCH 2018 News IT is not uncommon for MPs re- counting anecdotes from the elec- toral campaign to speak of the bizarre moments they experience when meeting constituents. From the old lady who offered an MP a glass of orange concentrate without diluting it with water, to the family that mistook a candidate's political party for their favourite one, the anecdotes are many and funny. But there are also the requests, which candidates laugh over when recounting in informal settings. In- variably, the all-time favourite is the solicitation for a government job as a watchman or else the family's 10 votes will remain in the drawer. These stories elicit smiles when- ever they are told on television or written about in autobiographical books but they take on a different twist in the light of what MaltaTo- day revealed last Sunday. An extensive cache of emails showed how Nationalist Party poli- ticians between 2009 and 2013 so- licited jobs for constituents at Was- teserv, a government entity. The emails show a systematic ap- proach with MPs, candidates and other politically-appointed officials channelling requests through then resources minister George Pullici- no's head of secretariat, Ray Bezzina for onward transmission to the Wasteserv CEO. The email exchanges got more intense before the 2009 European Parliament election and the 2013 general election. At one point Bezzina even insisted that Was- teserv refrain from making changes to employee conditions because the election was just a few weeks away. Pot calling the kettle black The publication of the emails re- vealed, possibly for the first time in black and white, how the clientelis- tic system operates in government. The PN MPs whose names cropped up in the 60-page-long cache said they were only 'recommending' people for employment. However, the emails tell a slightly different story with the ultimate concern being that of votes that can be won by appeasing constituents. The legislature-long saga – it hap- pened between 2009 and 2013 – goes a long way in punching holes in the mantle of good governance the PN tried to claim its own over the past five years. The justification that these were just recommendations makes the argument more pathetic. But nothing is really new in all this. On election eve last year, hun- dreds of people were employed at Wasteserv and the Water Services Corporation as the Labour govern- ment went into overdrive trying to placate pockets of discontent. The employment on the public payroll of people close to the La- bour Party on the basis of trust was perfected by the current adminis- tration and used very liberally over the past five years. The scene at the Public Accounts Committee in Parliament last week was symptomatic of the pot calling the kettle black. MPs on the com- mittee are discussing the significant increase in employment at Was- teserv in the weeks before the June 2017 election. PN MPs have cried foul because the new workers at Wasteserv were engaged at the same time that the Marsaskala recycling facility was heavily compromised after a mas- sive fire destroyed the main shed. The explanation so far to justify the increased employment is tenuous. But three of the PN MPs on the committee – Beppe Fenech Adami, Jason Azzopardi and Claudio Grech – were among the politicians, whose names appeared in the email cache. Forgetting their own wrongdo- ings, the Labour MPs hit back and cried scandal. Antica Roma Clientelism is a malaise that has long dogged public administration. As far back as 1955, the incoming Mintoff administration had axed from the public service some 800 people, claiming they had been en- gaged irregularly. The group became known as the ex-800 and the Nationalist Party, then in Opposition, pledged to re- employ them with the State when elected to government despite the irregularity of their initial engage- ment. By the time the PN was in power in 1962, most of these people had found jobs but a telling memo to Cabinet in 1964 by the works min- ister at the time sheds light on the pressure that the ex-800 were put- ting to be re-employed with the government. The memo formed part of the Cabinet documents released in 2014, covering the Borg Olivier and Mintoff administrations of the 1960s and 1970s until 1981. In the 1964 memo, the minister complained that these former State employees believed they had "a right to a government job". He also noted that some of the ex-800 opted to register for work to get a better chance of being employed with the State. It appears that obtaining a govern- ment job has remained an aspira- tion for many people and a favour politicians dispense quite willingly. On the eve of the 1987 election, the Labour government of the time under the stewardship of Karmenu Mifsud Bonnici had engaged some 8,000 people on the State payroll in what was a last-minute attempt to prevent electoral defeat. It was the last in a series of favours the gov- ernment was dispensing to its own. Getting access to a colour televi- sion, at the time a luxury, also de- pended on political patronage. The deteriorating situation had even prompted former foreign minister Michael Frendo, then an upcoming PN candidate, to adopt the slogan 'mhux pjaciri, imma drit- tijiet' (not favours, but rights) for his personal 1987 election campaign. The Nationalist administration that followed started with a lot of promise. Life changed radically, much like what happened in 2013, but a few months into the legis- lature, then minister Louis Galea concocted the auxiliary work- ers' scheme. This ended up being staffed by many people from his electoral district. Bad habits clearly have no politi- cal colour. Elected from a restricted pool Clientelism is partly the result of a district-based electoral system that sees politicians depending on a re- stricted pool of voters to get elected, according to academic Godfrey Pirotta. Speaking on Hinek Twiegeb, an interview programme on One TV, last week, the public policy profes- sor said clientelism was a natural consequence of an electoral system crafted by the British colonial mas- ters to return weak governments. Pirotta suggested doing away with the 13 electoral districts and leav- ing candidates to compete on the whole of Malta and Gozo. In this way, he argued, the electoral base candidates have to tap will be much wider, making it harder to accede to constituents' requests. Whether it would work to banish clientelism in public administration remains unclear. Even Pirotta did not seem too convinced but it could be worth a try. Prior to the last election PN leader Simon Busuttil had come up with the idea of creating a Cabinet minis- ter specifically dedicated to dealing with complaints on injustices. The intention was to have a ministry focused on citizens' rights but this risked turning into a complaints ministry inundated with unreason- able requests by constituents. And while the relationship be- tween the proposed ministry and existing complaint structures such as the Ombudsman was never ex- plained, it is clear that even in Bu- suttil's good governance narrative, he had to leave space for constitu- ent requests. A freeze too far Former prime minister Alfred Sant knows all too well about the backlash of adopting a hard-line stance on public sector employ- ment. When elected to government in 1996, he froze public sector em- ployment as part of a cost-cutting approach to address the deficit his administration inherited from the PN. But the freeze irked many. Some were bona fide people such as nurs- ing students expecting to be en- gaged with the health service after terminating their university studies, who found their career trajectory truncated. But others were Labour sympathisers expecting a slice of the cake now that 'their' party was in government. Joseph Muscat learnt that lesson Who is lecturing The publication of emails showing how Nationalist Party politicians and MPs tried to get their constituents on the Wasteserv payroll is symptomatic of the clientelistic system that has dogged Maltese politics for ages. KURT SANSONE tackles the issue