This Gozo fiefdom business has got to stop

The Minister for Gozo

Giovanna Debono, former Gozo Minister

We now find that the Ministry for Gozo, when Giovanna Debono was Gozo Minister, carried out private building and excavation works for her constituents and palmed the cost off onto the taxpayer by having the contractors invoice the Gozo Ministry (the government).

The whole thing was organised by the Minister’s husband, who was in charge of ‘public works’ at the Ministry.

And do you know what shocks me most about all this? Not the blatant scamming (though that, too), but the fact that the Gozo Minister gave her husband a key job in the government Ministry for which she was responsible, and nobody said anything.

Not the press, not the Labour Opposition at the time, not anybody. And the prime minister didn’t crack down on Mrs Debono and tell her to get her husband out of the ministry immediately.

What on earth is this country?

And now the exact same thing is happening. The current incumbent at the Gozo Ministry, Anton Refalo, has brought his wife in, too. Yes, she’s been imported into the Gozo Ministry.

And if the Opposition raises hell about it, which it has not, Joseph Muscat’s response will be his usual tu quoque: “Giovanna Debono did it too.”

Yes, and look what happened.

There are some very good reasons why husbands and wives should not work in the same office. There are some even more compelling reasons why government ministers should not bring their spouses in to work for their private secretariat.

The temptation to corruption and the creation of a mini-fiefdom is foremost among them.

But above all, this business of treating Gozo as some kind of special case has got to stop. Politicians and the public are perpetuating a very dangerous situation that has allowed the development of quasi-anarchy.

The only reason we have a Minister for Gozo is because both political parties want to grab as much as they can of the Gozo vote. There is no other reason. Malta is composed of two tiny islands. The usual array of ministers are perfectly capable of covering Gozo too in their routine work – they don’t have much more to do than the mayors of large towns in Germany as it is.

When you have a Minister for Gozo, that person becomes the king or queen of the island, controlling everything that the entire cabinet of ministers takes care of collectively on the main island.

What on earth would we do if Malta were, say, Greece? Have a cabinet minister for each and every one of those hundreds of islands?