Of weights, measurements and resignations

On Monday, the Prime Minister tabled in Parliament the National Auditor’s long-overdue report into the various ministries’ procurement of airline tickets for the years 2003 and 2004.
The significance of this report – ignored or even concealed by all the usual government friendly media – was that it had been commissioned in the wake of serious allegations levelled at former finance and foreign minister John Dalli, soon after his unsuccessful bid for party leadership against Lawrence Gonzi in 2004.
Before turning our attention to the contents of the report tabled on Monday, it will be worth remembering the nature of these allegations, which led directly to an almost unheard-of development at the time: a Prime Minister accepting the resignation of a senior Cabinet minister.
Looking back on the affair, Gonzi’s decision to accept Dalli’s resignation offer on 3 July 2004 was welcomed by many as a sign that the young and charismatic PN leader intended to deliver on his promise of a “new way of doing politics”.
But with hindsight, the decision itself now appears suspect. For one thing, the official reason was that the Prime Minister could not afford to have a member of his Cabinet “under investigation”. But Gonzi stopped short of specifying what investigation he was referring to... and at the time, Dalli faced multiple allegations of improper conduct.
One set of allegations, raised by The Times and given prominence on PBS news, involved the irregular procurement of some Lm40,000 worth of airline tickets from a company in which the minister’s own security officer was involved. Another, unrelated allegation had it that Bastjan Dalli – the minister’s brother – had accepted bribes associated with the awarding of a public tender for Mater Dei hospital equipment to Italian company Inso. These accusations were contained in a report commissioned by rival company (and failed bidder) Simed, and compiled by a “private investigator” named Joe Zahra.
The Simed report later proved to be a fabrication, and Mr Zahra was duly tried and imprisoned for forgery. With the auditor’s report finally concluded and made public this week, it seems that the only other investigation involving John Dalli has now exonerated the former foreign minister of all charges.
That this was indeed the case was evident long before the report was tabled; in fact, the matter was lain to rest when Lawrence Gonzi was forced to publicly rehabilitate his disgraced minister by offering him a token “economic advisory” post some months before the election.
Dalli was then given a public absolution in the election itself, when he was resoundingly returned to parliament from his home district, and very nearly upset the apple cart in the precarious 10th district, where he was considered an outsider. Since then, he has made a comeback to the Cabinet in the new role of social policy minister.
From this perspective one is tempted to lower the curtain on this messy affair once and for all. But one or two small questions still remain unanswered.
The first, and most embarrassing for Dr Gonzi, is: why was Dalli’s resignation accepted in the first place?
When Dalli presented his letter of resignation in 2004, he hinted darkly that there were forces at work against him behind the scenes. He talked of attacks from multiple quarters. He singled out journalist Ivan Camilleri - brother to Alan Camilleri, former communications co-ordinator within the office of the prime minister - as the chief instigator. Most sinister of all, John Dalli also referred to the possibility that he may have been “framed” by persons within the Nationalist Party.
Considering that Dalli had also broken ranks with the PN establishment – primarily, by refusing to play to the script written by party mentor Eddie Fenech Adami, who had anointed Gonzi as his own hand-picked successor - Dr Gonzi’s decision appears with hindsight to have been motivated almost by political vindictiveness.
Even if one were to give the Prime Minister the benefit of the doubt, and assume that he had genuine reason to doubt Mr Dalli’s version of events at the time when he accepted his resignation, the decision still reflects poorly on the Prime Minister’s political judgement.
Besides, there is another question that now must be asked. As alluded to earlier, ministerial resignations are not exactly everyday occurrences in this country. In fact, prior to the Dalli affair, the only minister made to resign in recent years had been Charles Mangion, over an unwitting presidential pardon issued to a man convicted of drug-related charges.
Given the ease and apparent lack of justification with which Gonzi accepted the “unacceptable” back in 2004... one can only wonder why he now finds it so hard to take a similar decision with regard to other cases which warrant precisely such clinical, dispassionate aloofness. For instance, the case of Nationalist MP Jeffrey Pullicino Orlando.
Whichever way one evaluates the outcome of the auditor’s report and its impingement on Dalli’s resignation, it is difficult to envisage a scenario in which Gonzi does not come out somehow tainted by the affair. Clearly, we are owed an explanation.

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