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This country is in dire straits and the sooner we recognize that we have a deficit problem the better. During the reign of Dr Eddie Fenech Adami the problem was dragged under the carpet and anyone who dared say that there is a problem was ridiculed and harassed until his mouth was shut. Now thanks to the EU, the government cannot fool us anymore and waited to hit rock bottom to start with the austerity programme.
The problem with austerity programmes is that the citizen is always made to pay the highest price. People who are responsible for recklessly emptying our coffers are left untouched and unaffected by the increase in taxes because their pockets are so full that they do not feel the burden. It is not the same for us citizens. For us, every additional tax is a step backwards in our lifestyle. The problem is that we have reached saturation point where we cannot pay anymore taxes and the more taxes we pay the more stagnant the economy becomes.
Everywhere you go you will find the country in shambles. In all government departments and at university there are no funds for maintenance and for the purchase of new equipment. At Zammit Clapp, the hospital for the elderly, the elevators are out of order and cannot be repaired because the hospital has no money. The government has a surplus of workers that it cannot control.
It pays good money to permanent secretaries and to a whole hierarchy of management of people who from the DG downwards have a track record of incompetence and impotence when it comes to the handling and management of their personnel.
A friend of mine who runs a non-governmental organisation was allowed to have three ex-drydocks personnel to help his organisation. He went and knocked on the doors of the three and asked them if they were willing to go and work for him. Believe it or not he found nobody who was ready to take up the offer because they told him that by nine o’clock in the morning they are home and that they do not want to move from their present place of work – with the Industrial Products and Services Ltd. The sad thing, this friend told me, is that they all have the blessing of the Minister.
Like them there are hundreds in the government, parastatal and government-related sectors. During the EU referendum campaign, I noticed somebody whom I knew to be employed in one of the government-owned companies chauffeuring one of the candidates almost twenty-four hours a day and when I asked him if he was still employed there, he proudly told me that he was, but he never reported for work, and in front of me phoned his wife to check if he had received his salary at home.
Everybody knows that the people at the Public Works department have had most of their work assigned to private contractors but none of the top government officials have, as yet, devised a programme for them. Somebody told me that there are about 15 people assigned to the stores but the stores are empty and so they have nothing to do. As for the others, who are traditionally known as laborers, it would seem that nobody knows what other jobs they have been assigned (if any). The same goes for the beach cleaners and I believe Malta has about 172 of them. How many of these 172 do we see cleaning our beaches is a different matter.
In this scenario the taxpayer will not remain idle anymore. We pay taxes, yes, but we have the right to demand that our taxes are spent wisely and not wasted. The government knows that for it to be credible it must lead by example. The purchase of our embassy in Brussels was uncalled for; as also uncalled for was the appointment of a Maltese lawyer to handle the transaction when all it took was for the Attorney General to make a couple of calls to the Belgian lawyers. After all, since the deal was in Belgium, the role of the Maltese lawyer would be limited to that of a messenger between the Belgian lawyers and government.
The taxpayer is not stupid and notices that money is lacking in services to the citizens, but not to the government. If medicines are lacking in hospitals, money is not lacking at Mater Dei Hospital. Believe it or not I got to know that all the bathrooms, showers and toilets there were destroyed because they later learnt that the grouting specifications did not reflect EU standards. And yet, it is business as usual and nobody is held accountable for the big mess and the big waste.
As if that was not enough, now the Government has introduced the eco-tax. Correct me if I am wrong, but the eco-tax is meant to reduce environmental harm or degradation and not to punish us for listening to the radio, watching television, or buying a fridge. The producer pays principle, as the Environment Minister called it, is more reminiscent of the war era where people had to do without the basic necessities to nourish the soldiers and build armaments. It would have made more sense had the Minister introduced a refund scheme or a ‘bring-in’ scheme so that consumers get a refund on the things subject to an eco-tax if they deposit the items at a designated site.
I am afraid that the eco-tax is not going to act as a disincentive to the public because let us put it this way, how can the Minister expect me to do without a television or a fridge or a radio or cosmetics in the twenty-first century?
The government has many advisors, professors (some of them self-proclaimed), and consultants (sic) who so far have all proved to be a disaster. I cannot understand, for instance, how none of them has urged the government to take the tourism industry seriously.
We boast that the industry is the main artery of the economy but we do nothing about it – we do not manage it apolitically, we do not appoint a Minister who can deliver, we do not engage personnel whose loyalty is to the industry and not to their Minister, we do not care less.
Not only that, but we also reduce the budget allocated. It is a pity that the government has not realised that the situation has reached saturation point and can no longer count on September 11 or the Iraqi conflict. The government has only got itself to blame and the incompetence at the Malta Tourism Authority, the priority of which is its own selfish interests and not of the industry as a whole.
The people cannot bear to pay anymore taxes. The economy cannot take a turn for the better if the only source of revenue for the government is to remain the collection of taxes. Ireland had introduced a moratorium so that taxes will not be higher than 12 percent when it joined the EU and the success of its membership was because it knew how to generate income from economic investments and not from extracting more taxes.
Investment does not come by wearing an Armani suit and driving a rodeo car – investment comes with hard work.
An Italian colleague of mine told me that the Malta Enterprise cannot be run by people who are on the verge of retirement but needs young energetic people who live in suitcases traveling around the world selling Malta as an investment opportunity.
We must save this country – and the only way we can do it is for the politicians to step aside for 10 years and let this country be run by technocrats who are ready to deliver. Only then can we mean
business!
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