I can’t stand Willy Wet-Leg,
Can’t stand him at any price.
He’s resigned, and when you hit him,
He lets you hit him twice.

This is one of my favourite poems by D. H. Lawrence. Open societies and active democracies need responsible and involved citizens who are not like Willy Wet-Leg. It is painful to admit that on the whole we have become a nation of Willy Wet-Legs, resigned to have the PN government hit us over and over again. At most we whimper in protest.
A friend of mine told me recently that we should wake up and behave like assertive citizens. “I look at the international news – France, Italy, Greece – our fellow EU countries where citizens stand up to their governments and I’m ashamed of how meek and passive we Maltese have become. We have scandal after scandal and not a whimper from the so-called civil society. Only MaltaToday ever really censures GonziPN… Maybe I’m getting old and have to get used to the fact that now people are only ready to fight things out from the comfort of their homes on the blogs and chat-rooms. For what it’s worth I try to stand up for what I think is right on the blogs too but still dream of seeing the streets of Valletta full of protestors like the protests we see all the time in other European countries.”
It was so refreshing last Wednesday evening to watch Labour leader Joseph Muscat delivering a robust speech where he made it clear that the Labour Party is not a crowd of Willy Wet-Legs and will not allow the PN government to get away with murder. The PN government talks about the rule of law and about the need to strengthen democracy and then unashamedly breaks the Data Protection Act. Confidential and private information collected from citizens who seek assistance from the Office of the Prime Minister and the offices of the Ministers and Parliamentary Secretaries is passed on to the PN as a database for its campaigning.
For the last four months we have been without a Data Protection Commissioner, as government has not replaced Mr Paul Mifsud Cremona who sadly passed away last August. One of the main principles guiding the Data Protection Act is that “Personal data is not processed for any purpose that is incompatible with that for which the information is collected.”
Both Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi and Minister Austin Gatt are politically responsible for the way the PN is breaking the law and unacceptably infringing the rights to privacy of thousands of citizens. Only Willy Wet-Legs tolerate such a situation.

Fake championing
In its latest annual report the National Commission for Persons with Disabilities (KNPD) has reported an increase in the number of complaints dealing with ICT training centres that are not adequately accessible for disabled students. When the report was presented a few days ago a Commission official explained that there are many cases where plans for buildings are submitted to MEPA which show access on paper but that then when these are built, the access is in fact missing.
One of the main reasons I called on government to investigate the latest award of tenders to private training providers in ICT for students who cannot be accommodated at MCAST is precisely for this reason: that they are not all accessible for disabled students. One of the criteria they had to meet was accessibility but the board adjudicating the tender did not verify the declarations made by the bidders. The board did not bother to check whether they are accessible as they say.
The chairman of the board, Mr Juan Borg Manduca, asked his deputy to check the centres for accessibility only after the board completed its report. He then ignored what his deputy discovered when he went round the ICT centres. I have obtained a copy of this report and this is what it says about two of the ICT centres that were judged to meet the criteria of accessibility by the adjudicating board headed by Mr Borg Manduca: “There is no access for persons with disability and no effort has been made to upgrade the premises to this effect. No ramp, no lift, no special toilets. The premises are spread over three floors with classrooms mainly on the top floor.”
“The premises (of another ICT centre) are not accessible to persons with disability, since there are a number of steps to go into the building before accessing the lift, which is not big enough to cater for any wheelchair and therefore not compliant with the requirements laid down by KNPD. Last year they had a student who was using crutches who had to be transferred to MCAST Paola because she was having problems accessing her classes, because of the steps in front of the building and because the lift was out of order many times.”
Instead of disqualifying these ICT centres Mr Borg Manduca’s board recommended them for the award of the tender. Dr Lawrence Gonzi who projects himself as the champion for disabled persons accused me of cruelly depriving 600 students of their ICT courses by stopping the award of this tender because I insisted that an enquiry should be held about the irregularities committed in the tendering process.

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