Political dementia

It would be sickening to poke fun at dementia sufferers but one cannot afford to let cases of political dementia go by without commenting about them.

Particularly when they have almost become a daily occurrance in our political way of life.

We had a fixer who suffered from an acute bout of political dementia when it came to the BWSC mega tender inspite of his having made sure that he would pocket his millions of Euros of commission, regardless of which other individuals, parties or organisations he might have shared them out with.

We have a Prime Minister whose secretariat seem to have forgotten to brief him about what could result in an acute case of impropriety.

We have a leading Cabinet Minister who forgot to be briefed about a mega EU funding project by her top bureaucrats and civil servants.

Yesterday we had a Prime Minister who forgot to reply to en embarassing PQ of mine, involving environmental tenders and consultancies, for almost nine whole months inspite of exhorting his own flock to pull their socks up and be on their toes to make sure that all pending parliamentary questions are replied to promptly.

We have a leading party's general secretary who forgot to draw his party leader's and Prime Minister's attention to reports of allegations of potential bribery that came to his knowledge.

We have an auditor general's report that left little to the imagination in the sense that the only people who could have provided hard evidence of corruption either had memory lapses, mental blocks or else simply refused to co-operate with the competent authorities.

We had a Commissioner of Police who once told us that he had never heard of lap dancing in Malta before a particular case saw the light of day since he happened to be a happily married man.

And we have a Prime Minister who seems to have forgotten to dedicate some quality time to come up with a measured and professional response to Joseph Muscat's 15 point action plan on how to address good governance issues - past, present and even future ones.

Even worse we have a Nationalist government that is acting as if it assumed the reins of power only yesterday, forgetting for a moment that it has been running the executive of the country for almost a quarter of a century.

So much so that it completely forgot the harsh truth that it not only has the right and indeed, even the duty to investigate any claims of alleged and or perceived corruption that may have come its way ... under any administration.

But that would be risky business for GonziPN.

The last thing this administration would like to do is to commit political hara kiri.

And open yet another can of worms.

Which will instantly bring the EFA dictum to mind. That whoever does not fight corruption is indeed corrupt too.

Being in the EU can lead to greater transparency but is no guarantee that corruption can be fully kept in check.

A quick look at goings on in present day Bulgaria and Romania should be sufficient eye openers!

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