Minister lied, watchdog looked away

The Standards Commissioner was convinced Silvio Schembri lied to him. He declared in his report that the Minister’s words raised doubts. He said he didn’t believe Schembri’s claims that he didn’t send public employees to his constituency offices.

Schembri had previously admitted to parliament to doing just that.

“Honesty” is the key value (clause 5.7 in the Ministerial Code of Ethics) that Cabinet Ministers should uphold.  “Ministers… shall provide complete and correct information to Parliament, the Cabinet and the public in general.”

Schembri did none of that, clearly breaching the ethics code. But the Commissioner let him off.

The Commissioner’s recurrent failure to call out dishonesty in our politicians and his penchant for window-dressing Ministers’ wrongdoing only normalises such devious behaviour. It certainly doesn’t raise standards.

Schembri was reported in the press to be using ministry officials to man his four constituency offices in Luqa, Siggiewi, Rabat and Zebbug. He was challenged in Parliament about this. He didn’t deny it.

On the contrary, he told Parliament, “A Minister’s secretariat is there to assist you in your work, which also involves being close to the people.”

The Commissioner launched an investigation after receiving two separate complaints about Schembri’s alleged abuse.

He wrote to Schembri, posing several questions.  What number of public employees or secretariat staff worked in his constituency offices? What was their role? What was their attendance schedule at the district offices? How many hours a week did each spend in those offices?

Schembri replied with typical contempt. “It’s not true that I told Parliament I send public employees regularly to my district offices”.  He claimed that “usually only I attend and nobody else”. He claimed that only when his father couldn’t fill in for his absence did his staff attend “voluntarily” between 4pm and 7pm.

He failed to answer any of the Commissioner’s questions.  He claimed there was no schedule because staff attendance at his constituency offices was only “exceptional”. He failed to tell the Commissioner how many staff attended his district offices.

The Commissioner wrote back to Schembri asking for names and contact details of secretariat staff who’d given a service in his district offices.  Schembri submitted the names of his three closest aides: Edward Portelli, Sonia Mifsud and Jolene Flask, his head of customer care.  The Commissioner called all three to testify.

You don’t need to be a senior investigator to realise all three witnesses Minister Schembri selected were primed. They submitted almost identical replies. They said they rarely went to Schembri’s district offices, and on the rare occasions when they did, it was always after office hours, specifically after 5.15pm or 5.30pm. Otherwise, they knew nothing.

Without being prompted, Edward Portelli, Schembri’s secretariat officer, immediately blurted out “after my work hours from 5.30 onwards”. He was asked how often he went. “No, not often, not often whenever he needs us to go,” was the evasive reply.

Jolene Flask, Schembri’s customer care head and secretary to the Malta Freeport Corporation board of directors, volunteered the same reply, without even being asked: “After work, and we go voluntarily until 7pm”.

“Oh no, not often,” she added. “It doesn’t happen often, rarely, usually he goes… I can’t tell you how often exactly.”

Another of Schembri’s customer care officers, Sonia Mifsud, parroted the same line:  “Obviously, we go after our work hours, roughly 5.15pm.”

“I can’t tell you how many times I went,” she stuttered.  When pressed, she replied, “I can’t tell you roughly, I don’t know how many times… I go voluntarily and I don’t ask for time off (in lieu) from work.”

She went on:  “I don’t know, I don’t think so… it’s possible; I don’t know… I have no idea, I don’t know.”

The Commissioner wasn’t fooled.  Despite the reluctant witnesses and their suspiciously identical testimony,  Commissioner Azzopardi didn’t miss the glaring inconsistencies.

The Minister revealed that offices open at 4pm, but his staff claimed they only went between 5.15pm and 7pm.  That’s because they’re meant to work until 5.15pm.  Admitting they were at Schembri’s district offices at 4pm would incriminate their Minister.

Their place of work is the Ministry in Valletta.  Even if their claims were true, they must be leaving their place of work early.  Getting to Rabat or Siggiewi to open the constituency office by 5.15pm, during rush hour, would require leaving their work at least by 4.30pm if not earlier.

The Minister claimed that he, and nobody else, usually goes to his district offices. But Edward Portelli went off-script and told the Commissioner, “Yes, yes, yes, yes, there will be one of us with him (the Minister) even because of the people outside, to usher them in.”

When asked if somebody else was usually with the Minister, he said: “Yes, isn’t it obvious?”

The Commissioner didn’t believe a word of what Schembri said.  “It is the view of the undersigned that what the Minister stated in Parliament amounts to a declaration that attendance at his district offices is part of the work of his secretariat staff.  The undersigned cannot see how what the Minister said can be interpreted in any other way”.

Schembri lied about his staff attending his district offices; he lied about attending those offices alone and withheld information from the Commissioner, refusing to reply to his questions.  He sent the Commissioner the details of his three most loyal staff members, whose convenient testimony was so identical that it was hard not to conclude that their statements were coordinated.

The Commissioner made it clear that “an ethical boundary is crossed if secretariat staff are sent to the Minister’s constituency offices as part of their work”.

He concluded that the secretariat staff were assigned to Schembri’s constituency offices. The Commissioner was convinced Schembri lied.  Yet he chickened out again, bizarrely concluding that “the undersigned has no other option but to conclude that Minister Schembri did not breach the ethics code in this case”.