The oldest trick in the book

At this rate, it’s going to become easier to list former politicians who weren’t disgraced midway through a legislature.

Unless you’ve been living under a rock like some news-averse lizard, you’ve probably heard the name Francine Farrugia by now.

In case you haven’t, the brief recap is that Farrugia, a Nationalist Party local councillor who held the position of financial controller at MCAST, allegedly embezzled €2.3 million from the same institution over a period of two years.

To add insult to injury, Farrugia had previously publicly spoken up against corruption, turning her into an instant poster child for hypocrisy. Overall, a story that insults our most basic sense of decency, the news equivalent of catnip for journalists.

I am sure my readers do not need to be reminded of the death of morality in this country. We all know who took a hatchet to its cranium, and it wasn’t some luxury-addled councillor in the sleepy town of Siġġiewi.

To be clear, there is no doubt that the accusations that Farrugia faces in court are heinous. Given that I did not even know who she was before this whole debacle came to light, all I can say for now is that she deserves to rot in jail if these accusations are proven.

Having said that, it would be disingenuous not to frame her case in the context of the wider problems of this country.

Let’s start from what we know so far: Farrugia clearly wasn’t some criminal mastermind siphoning off money through some complex laundromat of offshore companies.

If you’re enough of a moron to allegedly funnel €1.9 million straight into your Revolut account, then you have no idea what you’re doing. The money trail is easily traceable and impossible to explain. I suppose the closure of Pilatus Bank really left a gap in our stolen money economy.

For all intents and purposes, this seems like it was a textbook example of a public official who was in control of the purse strings and abused that power for personal gain.

In other words, Farrugia is exactly like the endless list of government officials who were caught siphoning taxpayer money into their own pockets.

What separates her from other such individuals (besides the sloppiness of the whole affair) was the speed and tenacity of the police force’s investigation in this case, especially when compared to the glacial pace with which the police looks into corruption at the highest levels of government.

To drive that particular point home, we don’t need to look very far. We can stay within the premises of the same educational institution that Farrugia allegedly stole from.

Problems at the institution ranged anywhere from a contentious inquiry into a jobs for votes scandal that uncovered blatant fraud and led to counter-accusations of slander, multiple paid government gigs for select individuals who previously served in the institution, and consultancy agreements for former chairpersons accused of corruption, to name a few.

With such an institutional track record, one can be hardly surprised that Farrugia allegedly managed to get away with such brazen theft for so long.

Not one of the cases cited above seem to have raised enough red flags for the police force to take the kind of action we saw in Francine Farrugia’s case, even though they all happened within the same public institution.

Although Farrugia’s case stands out because of the sheer sense of arrogant impunity that one must have to commit such a brazen act of theft, it is still not as galling as hearing about education minister Clifton Grima’s expression of “anger and disappointment” about the case.

“In reference to a number of media reports about an MCAST member who was charged with fraud and misappropriation of public funds, I’d like to express my anger and my disappointment about these facts which are now public,” Grima’s brief post on social media reads.

“At the same time, I’d like to also show my appreciation for the joint effort carried out by the police corps, MCAST’s administration and everyone who worked to ensure that there was an efficient, expedited process. Casting aside the person’s identity and other public roles she continues to occupy, MCAST will continue with its work in favour of students while continuing to assure that it will keep safeguarding the principles of governance, accountability, and transparency.”

A photo of education minister Clifton Grima. Photo: DOI

The only place in which this statement would ever be considered truthful must be in a parallel universe where the government isn’t manifestly corrupt.

The education minister’s extremely selective anger about Farrugia’s case speaks volumes about the government’s desperate attempts at recreating the classical false equivalence between itself and the Opposition, the very same one that has propped up our dubious democracy for so long.

The mere fact that this story was leaked to the press almost immediately is a painful reminder of the government’s insatiable need for diversions, scapegoats, and any other kind of distraction that can pull us away from their own wrongdoing.

This delusional dichotomy continues to foster a very dangerous disconnect between what the public needs and what the political class delivers.

It is true to state that both the Labour Party and the Nationalist Party are beholden to big business and that corruption flows both ways.

It is also true, however, that Farrugia immediately resigned from all of her positions. Her political career within the Nationalist Party is dead in the water.

Within the Labour Party, there is absolutely nobody who is beyond rehabilitation. All it takes is spending a few months away from the media limelight – while suspended on half pay or some other ridiculous arrangement – and voila, you are back in business.

Both major parties are corrupt and largely interested in self-preservation, but not equally so. It is simply inaccurate to say that both of them treat the problem of corruption with the same yardstick.

The fact is that it is the government that has managed to destroy any remaining shreds of decency within our political system. At the very worst, the opposition can be accused of being so incredibly incompetent that it failed to avoid getting dragged down into the pits.

Rather than reshaping itself into a standard bearer for…well, standards, the Nationalist Party got played like suckers, attempting to adapt to this newly hellish landscape by presenting itself as a more acceptable version of the same type of cronyism.

Woe betide the nation that reveres the spineless.