Once again, the Home Affairs Ministry has refused to make public certain recommendations, made by the Pyrotechnics Commission earlier this year, to close two fireworks factories which are exposing nearby residents to risk.
This is the second act of fireworks-related reticence on the part of the same ministry. Ever since 2004, Minister Tonio Borg has been sitting on a report compiled by the Explosives Committee about the safety standards of a number of fireworks factories: among them, the St Helen’s factory in Gharghur, where an explosion last month left five people dead and an entire nation under shock.
To make matters worse, on our front page today we quote an email, inadvertently sent to this newspaper by the minister’s communications co-ordinator Joe Azzopardi, which reveals a deep-rooted disdain for the role of the media: in particular, its insistence on ignoring our legitimate demands for information regarding the Pyrotechnics Commission’s recommendations. Readers would do well to remember that each time a newspaper is snubbed by a government communications co-ordinator – or worse still, directly by a Cabinet minister – the ultimate insult is borne by the reader himself, who is thus denied access to information which should by rights be his. In this case, literally: for the reports and recommendations kept hidden by the Ministry were after all paid for out of public money, which should technically also make them public property.
Besides, this newspaper would also like to know what other recommendations were made by both entities involved in pyrotechnics safety. Both are made up of experts in their respective fields; their opinions in the issue are surely relevant, at a time when an increasing number of people are justifiably concerned at what appears to be wholesale disregard for safety precautions by a largely amateur industry.
But the issue goes well beyond safety (or the lack thereof) at Malta’s many fireworks factories. After all, we are also talking about the government’s declared intentions to launch a Freedom of Information Act. By holding the government to this promise, this newspaper is also insisting on a greater commitment to openness, transparency and accountability, at a time when the general public is still reeling from a quick succession of corruption scandals in numerous authorities and government departments.
The same government has often maintained that it is committed to the principle of openness. It is justifiably proud of a number of accomplishments in this regard: for instance, the notion of a pre-budget document, which went some way towards dispelling the cloak of secrecy traditionally enveloping the annual budget exercise.
Unfortunately, however, government only undoes this good will each time it gives the impression of skirting or sidestepping its obligations towards the general public. In this case in particular, by maintaining a wall of silence on such a sensitive issue, government is also creating the strong suspicion of culpability: we already know that certain recommendations concerning fireworks safety have been ignored by this administration, as well by its predecessors. What recommendations have been ignored this time, and at what price?
So far, it seems that the only information-related commitment government has kept to the letter was the enactment of a Data Protection Act. It was an easy promise for the government to keep, as among other things, the Data Protection Act contained a proviso which exempts political parties from processing data regarding their own members. Even without this bizarre anomaly, which permits the Nationalist and Labour parties to maintain databases which would be illegal in any self-respecting democracy, the Data Protection Act has time and again been cited as a legalistic excuse to withhold information, not to publish it.
When it comes to the implementation of a Freedom of Information Act, so necessary to counterbalance the equally necessary Data Protection Act in order to provide fair access to information for all, government seems to suddenly lose all its enthusiasm.
This does not bode well for the fulfilment of future political promises ahead of a general election.

Search: MALTATODAY BUSINESSTODAY WEB Archives

---

NEWS | Wednesday, 15 August 2007

Elderly keep PN ahead in Gozo

Santa Marija – the best beaches in Gozo

Bortex will not hire Chinese workers

Pöttering stands by refusal to grant MaltaToday access

‘Ghost ship’ drops off immigrants, fishermen claim

Marriage breakdowns up by 162 per cent in ten years

Census shows women more literate than men

The new Maltese – 12,112 foreign nationals granted citizenship

French embassy mum as Libya retains nuclear stockpile

Medical brain drain to UK reaches highest levels

14 migrants’ bodies found