Home affairs minister Byron Camilleri’s career would be catastrophically funny if it weren’t such a prime example of sleaze and incompetence.
I mean, how else does one describe a man who apparently wanted to bail on his job multiple times but somehow managed to walk away with a bigger portfolio every single time?
That’s like the national government equivalent of going to a BCRS machine and somehow walking away with more plastic bottles than you showed up with.
The last time we witnessed yet another pathetic Cabinet reshuffle was in January last year.
I wrote a column titled Flogging a dead horse, obviously referring to the fact that the reshuffle was just another game of musical chairs. Prime minister Robert Abela seems to be very fond of reliving this particular childhood game (though I suspect princes who grew up in palaces would not be all too familiar with it).
Whenever the government decides a bit of reordering is overdue, it’s never about putting the best people in the best place where they can provide the best service for the country.
The way they carve up and parcel out ministerial portfolios sounds a whole lot more like a group of colonisers arbitrarily drawing borders over lands that people have been living in for ages.
So, in honour of our providential column from last year and the fact that nothing has changed in that regard, we consider this commentary to be its spiritual descendant.
But, I digress – back to Byron and his incredible ability to fall in reverse.
Back in January of last year, the rumour mill over at Dar Ċentrali claimed that the prime minister had attempted to remove Byron Camilleri and finance minister Clyde Caruana.
Both apparently refused to budge, leading the Nationalist Party to claim that the prime minister had no control over his own Cabinet members.
Now, after making it clear that he wants to take a step back at the very least, Byron Camilleri has somehow managed to end up in the unenviable position of managing the golden passports fund on top of being burdened with home affairs, security, and employment.
Only the Labour Party could think there was nothing wrong with shifting a golden passports piggy bank to the ministry responsible for law enforcement after the European Court of Justice unequivocally condemned the scheme.
It is indeed a mystery – why would anyone who clearly wants to leave their job (or at the very least, suffer less embarrassment while doing so) repeatedly accept more punishment instead?
In case you’re having trouble keeping up – from left to right: home affairs minister Byron Camilleri, prime minister Robert Abela, finance minister Clyde Caruana, disgraced former health minister Chris Fearne, economy minister Silvio Schembri, EU funds minister Stefan Zrinzo Azzopardi, heritage minister Owen Bonnici, social dialogue parliamentary secretary Andy Ellul.
Disgraced former health minister Chris Fearne didn’t give a damn about whether the prime minister wished to “accept” his resignation or not. He resigned, and publicly humiliated Abela while doing so.
Mind you, Fearne is just as guilty as the rest of them. What he did with the hospitals concession was an unforgivable act of desperately looking the other way and hoping the shit doesn’t smear your jacket after it hits the fan.
But at least he had enough conviction to resign and stick to it. Unlike Byron Camilleri, whose defining character trait seems to be spinelessness.
Meanwhile, what was claimed as a major reshuffle fizzled out into four portfolios being swapped around by the great colonisers of our time.
Of course, the Lands Authority needed to be tossed around again, presumably to obscure the chain of responsibility for a poisonous fiefdom that is so dirty that one cannot hold onto it for more than a few months.
After being named as a key entity in the facilitation of dubious transfers of public land into private hands more times than anyone can count, last year the Lands Authority went from economy minister Silvio Schembri to Stefan Zrinzo Azzopardi.
Now, the prime minister hived off the EU funds portfolio from within his own domain to Stefan Zrinzo Azzopardi, now minister for EU funds.
The lands portfolio that was in Zrinzo Azzopardi’s hands is now the responsibility of heritage minister Owen Bonnici. Personally, we can’t wait to hear who gets it next. Truly riveting stuff.
Clearly in a giving mood, the prime minister also decided to break off another piece of his domain – the Malta Competition and Consumer Affairs Authority (MCCAA) – and assign responsibility for it to parliamentary secretary for social dialogue Andy Ellul.
What’s really telling about this exercise is that all the portfolios that were tossed around in this manner are all key aspects of the Labour Party’s criminal chokehold on government money.
The Lands Authority is abused to facilitate shady deals involving public land and private investors. EU funds are consistently misused without any oversight or enforcement. The MCCAA is a toothless authority which attempts to crack down on price gouging and market distortion but isn’t allowed to go to town on anyone.
And of course, the golden passports fund, which for obvious reasons, has become a hill that the Labour Party is willing to die on.
All of these portfolios went to the remaining handful of loyalists at Abela’s disposal. Such nodes of regulatory and financial firepower cannot be handed to someone who isn’t an absolute yes man.
It really doesn’t matter whether the prime minister was trying to oust the home affairs minister to promote his beleaguered culture minister or whether the home affairs minister himself was just trying to slim down his in-tray.
What is clear is that the Cabinet of Ministers is absolutely rudderless. The captain is nowhere to be found and there is a suspiciously iceberg-shaped object on the horizon.
Better check the insurance on that yacht – you know, just in case…