Why don’t our politicians grow up? Instead of looking at the recent spate of hold-ups with some degree of sound reflection, Gavin Gulia and Tonio Borg are behaving like a couple of schoolboys who want to attract the teacher’s attention.
First the Opposition Home Affairs MP tells us the obvious, and then he indulges in a bit of political wind up (not to be confused with bringing the issue to a conclusion) to which predictably the Home Affairs Minister rises to the bait like a hungry mazzun.
Dr Gulia (despite his “epidemic” crack, is not a doctor but a lawyer) presented himself as the policeman’s champion, implying that the recent spate of armed robberies were due to low police morale, resignations, low pay, inexperience and a lack of human resources.
As proof of the latter, he cites the fact that the armed police officers now guarding the HSBC branches are having to perform this duty on their day off.
“Closing the stable door a little late”, was my reaction when an overweight, armed officer blocked the narrow entrance to my local branch the other day. Hopefully, he will not have to do any chasing.
It might be a little late, and the officers are being assigned to guard HSBC branches during their day off, but hey, “they are getting overtime pay, a very different situation from the time that the Labour government used to send policemen home on Sundays so that the government could save money”, gloated the ministry.
For God’s sake, alright already, a Labour administration sent officers home on a Sunday in some unspecified time to save money and a Nationalist one today is getting them to work on their day off with overtime pay. Is that solving anything?
Has anyone asked the officers what they would prefer? A day of rest with their families, or more money? As if they have a choice anyway.
Now of course there is some truth in what Dr Gulia used to rile the government with. There is no doubt that the force needs quite a bit of shoring up. But did he come up with any sound advice, other than the implication that the police will do better under a Labour Administration?
Because they would pump more money into the force, I presume. He claimed that capital funding for the police had declined by Lm150, 000 over the last three years.
Dr Gulia completely ignored the firearms issue, i.e., that there does seem to be a proliferation of them. Why? Does he question how well trained the officers now carrying guns are? No, he does not. I would have thought that would be quite important for public peace of mind.
And he gives no thought to why more people seem to be turning to armed crime in the run up to Christmas and the change to the Euro in the New Year. His sole objective was to show up the government’s failings and promote his own party.
Now while keeping the government on its toes and trying to get into the driving seat are part of the Opposition’s role, they should not be its only aim. Besides, just pumping money into anything does not necessarily make it efficient.
The ministry, by the way, also ignored the salient points. All it was concerned with was playing the one-upmanship game and responded by saying that allowances for policemen had risen to Lm1.91 million (€2,771,954) from Lm1.15 million (€2,678,779) in 1998 (under Labour) and that Police spending on overtime had doubled and payments for extra duty were also up.
So why is there such a lackadaisical attitude in the police force? A rather relevant point to the Balzan raid.
The ministry also claimed that hold-ups are at a four-year low? Really? I do not remember anything so spectacular as the Balzan bank heist, not to mention the alarming amount of armed robberies in that week.
And they are still happening. The latest one took place on Wednesday at an amusement establishment in Birkirkara. This was either the same robbers who raided a similar establishment in Gzira late in the evening of December 6, and the one in Mosta two days earlier.
Or, it could be a copycat crime. And there is another scenario, which would be unfair of me to refer to at this point, while investigations are still being pursued.
But never mind, because what is important here, teacher please note, is that the rate of hold-ups “is lower than it was in 1998, the last year of the Labour government… Furthermore, the number of policemen who had resigned last year and this year was smaller than the number of resignations, under the Labour government.”
For heaven’s sake, what we want to know is what is going to be done about the here and now - arms control and a more sophisticated force - not political point scoring. If this is all we are going to get until the next election, God help us!
MPs seem to forget what they are sitting in Parliament for, namely to represent you and me and not to have a jolly old slanging match with the other side.
How are the politicians going to improve attitudes and professionalism in the force and tackle the apparent ease firearms can be acquired? That is what we want to know.
Morale is not just boosted with cash. Officers need to be proud of their profession and that seems sadly lacking. There is tolerance of unprofessional behaviour and the left hand does not know what the right is up to because there is a lack of trust.
That was very obvious when the Central Bank got its Euro cargo delivered, which incidentally was a successfully planned operation as far as getting the Euros safely stowed in the Central Bank’s vaults.
It was not only that no diversion plans for traffic had been made, they very rarely are. But it was also because the officers directing the traffic away did not have a clue, why they were doing what they were doing and for how long, that one suspected that only a handful of people were aware of the nitty gritty.
Visiting and running errands for my mother in Valletta had already been made difficult with the new road closures, but I was unlucky enough to have a car breakdown near her home on that afternoon.
I got a call from the breakdown driver telling me he had been refused entry through Castille towards Hastings Gardens and the police could not tell him why he could not get past, or when he would be allowed through. Could I check out what was happening and call them back, I was told.
Had the police not given him an alternative route? I queried. Well no, they had not. They obviously had forgotten that nearly all the access roads in Valletta are blocked now, and the only other point of entry leads to one-way streets leading out of the city.
What if someone in the neighbourhood needed an ambulance? Now I can understand that ambulances can be used as decoys in bank raids and we know that vans can be conveniently abandoned to block a road. So for the sake of security it was acceptable that all traffic was diverted away from the area.
But at least the Valletta police should have been able to open up a number of other access roads away from the immediate areas for emergencies. Like lowering the barrier at the Merchant’s street end for example.
But the Valletta police seemed to be in the dark on what exactly was going on, when I phoned.
And when I finally walked over to the station I was told the road could be closed for hours. Yet, popping round the corner to have a look, I realised that the road was open again. Had I relied on the phone I would have been waiting for the breakdown truck all night.
So please, if one of the few access roads left into Valletta need to be blocked for whatever reason, can the relevant authorities think of the city’s elderly residents and provide an alternative access point.