All bark but no bite

I am told that university lecturers have little or no chance of getting a pay rise. If they had waved their swords before the last election, I have no doubt that Gonzi et al would have gladly accepted their demands. Surely, Galea Curmi would have done what he did to all electoral lobbies: cave in.
Now Tonio Fenech is telling the lecturers to take it or leave it. I like it when the minister of a hundred good causes sounds firm and tough.
In February of this year, Tonio Fenech’s mentor Dr Gonzi turned to the Armier squatters – the ones that live in ugly green slums on public land and which have never had a permit – and promised them that he will legitimise their position.
Good Dr Gonzi is so nice to the Armier squatters who have stolen public land, and yet he is so nasty to the university lecturers. He can afford to be so.
Last Sunday the PM suggested that in a choice between the students and lecturers, the 11,000 students are far more important than the lecturers, who number 700. Surely everyone will agree that not all the 11,000 students should be entitled to a stipend.
Yet, for fear of unleashing an electoral backlash, Gonzi refuses to reform this sacred cow. What he really wanted to say is that 11,000 votes are far more important than 700 votes.
When you hear what lecturers have to say about their fiscal remuneration, one wonders and wonders what the PM’s idea for “excellence in education” is all about.
I guess it has to do with the PM’s concept of being excellent in presenting false hopes to the middle class... the vast majority of which has continued to genuflect as if the government were the papacy.

Saga at university
The saga of the university is a good example of how the middle class is treated by this administration. The university lecturers are typically middle class. They are usually as blue as the azure blue sea, and are typically soft and non-confrontational.
So the government ignores them and takes them for what they are: all bark but no bite.
Until now, Gonzi has played his cards right. As always, he has always pushed others to face the music.
He knows that he is unable to accede to the demands of the lecturers, because he simply does not have the money. But he does have money to squander when it comes to extremely useless investments such as the Brussels embassy, security firms at Mater Dei, consultancies and government boards, and across-the-board children’s allowance.

On rainstorms
Rainstorms are a better example to prove crass government incompetence when it comes to road making.
The last time we heard anything about a fine Maltese road was when African and Asian dictators gathered in Ghajn Tuffieha to enjoy a Commonwealth retreat. Thanks to this meeting of inconsequential statements and pleas, the police acquired their new Ford Focus cars, and the Maltese a small stretch of asphalted road.
The Maltese coined the name “the CHOGM road”. And after that everyone seemed to have forgotten the other promises that were made by politicians over the plight of our roads.
The St Paul’s bypass is perhaps a typical example of government ingenuity in repairing roads. But if we are to congratulate government it surely has to be on the complex canalisation programme along all our streets, which guarantees that all water rises so high that your expensive family car is washed in sewage overflow.
In the last 20 years of Nationalist administration, not only have we not seen the water problem solved, but really and truly it has been exacerbated by poor planning and short-term policies.
Every town and village literally floods, every road becomes a rivulet, then a river, then later on a rapid.
And yet, the catchments for second-class water are simply non-existent... except for a few that date back to the good Mintoffian days.
Nonetheless the ministers and the PM argue about the problem as if it were a brand new and surprise calamity. As if the state of our roads is something that occurred only now.

No social housing please
Three cheers to Sandro Chetcuti from the GRTU for suggesting a moratorium on stamp duty on construction, and an end to social housing.
He was, was he not, accompanied by the one and only Vince Farrugia.
It shocks me to see how two former so-called socialists or Labourites have turned out to be champions of the right wing.
The right hates to be taxed and believes that there is no such thing as class. If Vince and Sandro really believe that there is no demand for social housing in Malta, they should really sit down with Joe Gerada or Mgr Victor Grech or perhaps spend a night in the back streets of Cottonera.
The term underclass does not seem to have any meaning for these two gentlemen. I wonder whether it's social housing that should be abolished, or the GRTU. Anyone with any suggestions should send a postcard to Sandro Chetcuti, preferably one showing Malta as it looked before being pillaged and deformed by speculators and developers with the same philosophy as Chetcuti’s.

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