I feel sick when I read diatribes in columns of various supposedly-intelligent or at least semi-intelligent newspapers. The people behind these long-winded columns should know better, or on second thoughts, do they? Honestly, I cannot fathom how editors do not see through their chosen columnists and their personal agendas or grievances: people who are totally alienated and divorced from real life as it is, on the Maltese islands, people who are entrapped in worlds/bubbles of their own making, living in cocoons usually wall-papered with high-value currency notes.
Probably the Queen of Columnists is she who writes every Thursday in such a newspaper. Honestly, MaltaToday should well thank this gentle lady for giving it such a good advertisement – and a free service, too, which is quite an alien thing to people like her. She chooses to call this newspaper a lapdog of the Labour Party, keenly ignoring the number of column inches in MaltaToday which take to task the Labour Party leader and the Party itself and the fact that one of the paper’s directors has of recent been responsible for the PN’s media. And quite ignoring the fact that she, herself, is a political lapdog. But then, probably she believes that it’s quite okay to be one for the Nationalists, but quite unacceptable to be so for Labour. So much for shrewdness and fairness of mind.
I have no intention of writing in favour of the Civil Service. Nor am I going to in any way speak in favour or against their summer afternoons off. However, the so-called Lm 2 million spent on summer overtime is a matter which La Galizia mentioned, I think, about twenty times in the course of an article she recently wrote somewhere. Obviously in her usual kind manner, La Galizia denigrated the workers in the Civil Service and bemoaned the fact that they have summer afternoons off, that we – yes, herself included, as I understood it – are working so that they can have their summer afternoons off, and that they reputedly earned Lm 2 million for overtime hours during the summer.
At the time of my writing this article, one of the Unions which is not considered to be a PN-lapdog claimed that the Lm 2 million mark was not correct. It could have been more, it could have been less. However, I have these points to make:
First, from the real sum earned, reduce a quarter of it in Tax revenue – hence, Lm 500,000 in taxes, tell La Galizia.
Secondly, if accordingly, Lm 2 million was spent on such overtime, that means that the remaining one and a half million Liri was divided into so many thousands of civil servants – hence families in Malta and Gozo – which would probably average out to some miserable quota. Miserable, that is, compared to the huge salaries, commissions, perks and other odd monies that come out of the Maltese coffers to ministers, directors, cronies, friends, lapdogs, etc.
Thirdly, isn’t someone responsible for overtime? Who signed and approved such overtime? Who makes policies in ministries and departments as regards overtime? If there is such a person, that is? To who is the buck passed? Oh yes, according to La Galizia – it is the worker who is always the guilty party. On the same lines as Air Malta.
Then, again, why continue harping on about and against these summer afternoons off? According to some sources, the workers concerned work an extra hour every day in autumn and winter to make up for these summer afternoons off. And whose fault was it in the first place that Government employees started working under such conditions? Surely, not the workers!
And why is it that we have started to hear growls and moaning against afternoon offs so soon after the general election of last year?
There is a lawyer-columnist, who rants and raves – intelligently disguising such with apparent humour – and expects that nobody should be courageous enough to stand up and criticise his manners and his way of writing.
This chap is as arrogant as they come – he has no respect for his readers, he insults the Maltese people without any qualm, and just a brief reading of his weekly diatribes show him for what he is: a man, terribly full of himself and without a hint of modesty, a man without a sense of altruism, social or otherwise – I don’t know if you get me.
And speaking of this chap, another point comes up: why do such respectable newspapers expect their readers to be in any way interested in the daily or weekly exploits, private or otherwise, of the columnists themselves? In other words, why should I be in the least interested in where such a columnist rested his fat buttocks last Saturday, where so and so went shopping and got her ticket the other day, where another columnist went to eat that weekend and got a fair – or unfair – deal? Or what this chap listened to, over the airwaves, going to work, …. The list is endless! Endless!
To turn to another subject I was reading the opinion of another commentator, this time on an electronic means of media, in which he claims that he is in favour of the PM’s optimism.
His article is 12 paragraphs long – the introductory one is the statement I just mentioned, the concluding paragraph is a repetition of the introduction and the rest of the article is made up of arguments criticising what the PM stated. But my question is: if you are criticising what the PM said in that media conference, why do you harp on about going along with his optimism?
These are respectable newspapers, in general. They should know better than to harbour such writers who are actually a threat to the democracy that we are supposed to be living in. Such newspapers would show a greater respect to their readers and in general would have a fine marketing exercise if once in a while, they had to organise a survey related to how many people read which page. Then, perhaps, but only perhaps these newspapers would know which columns are being read and which are not.
To comment on this opinion, please send an email to:
