Today’s MaltaToday carries an interview with Austin Gatt, and there is nothing unpredictable about the minister’s declarations: he says what he thinks and that is about it.
If Dr Gatt was living in another age, he would probably be on the front by Genghis Khan’s side, a bloodthirsty warrior with an oversized sword who would tear through the villages and plunder everything in sight.
Gatt however is not a lonely actor in this drama. If his judgements are flawed then he should not be held responsible for them. He may be the warrior, but it is Genghis Khan who should be taking most of the blame for all the plundering.
As you would have by now realised, Genghis Khan is our man of the week: he is Lawrence Gonzi, and his general is Austin. For it is Gonzi who chairs the Cabinet and gives the green light for any proposal brought to the table. Surely, if Gatt captains this proposal he cannot be blamed; the blame is collectively borne.
I am sure the mere suggestion that Dr Gonzi reminds me of Genghis means poor old Mr Khan is turning in his grave.
But Genghis Khan was after all a decisive, impulsive visionary who said what he thought and pretty much did what he say he would do. Gonzi, I’m afraid, is the complete opposite: indecisive, not impulsive, not much of a visionary, and doesn’t do what he says he will.
In the past, whenever sour fiscal policies were introduced it was not Fenech Adami who piloted them, but John Dalli. It was a very useful and intelligent way of deflecting blame and attention. ‘Blame it on Dalli’ was a motto that worked. All credit to Fenech Adami.
The same is true for today. All the credit goes to Gonzi, all the blame on Gatt and the other ministers. Although truly, Gatt’s chutzpah has allowed him to handle the flak and get away with murder. And Tonio Fenech, despite presiding over a disastrous financial year, remains Gonzi’s favourite polpetta.
But what happened in the last election confirms this maxim: Dr Gonzi literally dumped his Cabinet ministers. Francis Zammit Dimech, Jesmond Mugliett, Ninu Zammit, Edwin Vassallo, Louis Deguara and Censu Galea were all dumped, but only after the election was over.
Gatt is hopefully wise enough to realise that Gonzi’s men are already spreading the word that Gatt’s surcharge proposal will be shot down and that Gonzi will come to everyone’s rescue. You know, as if this proposal has been the brainwave of one man,
But if Gonzi’s men decide to rubbish Cabinet ministers it should not be our concern.
Ours is very simple. We should ask why the middle class should be told to fork out €55 million just because this government has been throwing away public funds into projects and people with no respect for the bottom line.
When the next budget press conference is announced, there is little doubt in my mind that Tonio Fenech’s horrible accounts will be blamed on the international financial crisis – not on the mismanagement and bad planning in government. Here is a young minister who insists that the financial crisis has not directly hit Malta but who will use this very crisis to camouflage the ‘horrible’ figures. Here is someone who will minimise the PN’s spending spree before the last election, and ridicule anyone who will suggest that the government’s targets were inflated and wrong.
Gatt can of course say, and he will say it, that he doesn’t care for what is being written. True, Gatt always says that. One good reason for existing in a democracy and not in Genghis Khan’s time. Today we elect the Khans of this world. Dr Gatt should not take his luck too far.
But we can at least try to remind him what his government has done with our money over the last years. Take for example the case of Dar Malta in Brussels. I am sure you all recall the intervention of multi-millionaire Albert Mizzi and others in assessing the value and potential of this Lm9 million (approx. €20 million) purchase in the heart of Brussels. They all came back saying what a wonderful investment it was.
Richard Cachia Caruana, the man who would like to replace Joe Borg as Commissioner, was thrilled.
We were also told four years ago, that our Lm9 million spend would be recouped from renting the extra, unused floors to private companies.
Four years ago… I was a happy man, had less white hair, and believed that there was going to be a new way of doing politics.
Well, just in case you do not know, the empty floors at Dar Malta are still not rented out and yes, that Lm9 million project is still reaping zero dividends, zero profits and zero revenues.
Unless you think that sticking dozens of eurocrats on one floor to assist our permanent representative to the EU should have cost Lm9 million.
Does it really matter after all? That Lm9 million is our money after all. Imagine having an investment of that sort, which you didn’t rent out for four years.
And even if I don’t make too much a fuss of Dar Malta, maybe I should be looking at the subventions, or rather the good deals, offered to private enterprise and foreign companies over the last years.
I could of course mention a few hotels on public land, a few public beaches, a large tract of public land at Ricasoli, and countless other examples public land being given out, leased, or sold for peanuts, for such a pittance that one starts wondering what the free market is all about.
I could talk of budget overruns in the construction of roads, of unaccounted water and electricity.
I could talk of the hundreds employed with the government before the election, those people who found a job because of ‘voting’ considerations.
I could talk of government employees with nothing to do. Of millions down the drain at the dockyards and other parastatal companies. Of wastage at Mater Dei and other public projects. Of perks and high allowances for consultants and chief executives.
But what I cannot comment about or discuss is to what extent the middle class, traditionally Nationalist and anti-Labour, will be taxed in the future. And I cannot say or explain why many of them will continue to suck up to this government that is a boffin when it comes to taking our money, but only giving it back on the eve of an election.
What I can say is one thing. Dear Genghis leave us middle class alone.

Tell her to stop
Since I have better things to do with my life then watch television on Friday nights, I have been told that Labour MP Marlene Pullicino has stated, once again, that she is against divorce and that she believes that divorce goes against the laws of God.
She is not alone in the Labour party. Which is why I wonder why Joseph Muscat does not change the name of his party to the Malta Populist Party-that-never-gets-elected.
I believe that everyone has a right to an opinion and a belief. And here is mine.
Marlene Pullicino Orlando, who was married to Nationalist MP Jeffrey Pullicino Orlando, is separated from her husband and today has chosen to live with another man, who is himself separated. Both have children from their first marriages, and a child together. Good for them and, cross my heart, I wish them the very best.
But of course, one doesn’t even need to dig deep into the catechism of the Catholic Church, to understand that for an anti-divorce crusader, her situation is flouting God’s laws left, right and centre.
How can she, of all people, preach to people the way they should live, or that divorce goes against God, when she is pretty much living in sin according to her own religious precepts?
Really, it hurts me to think that Marlene Pullicino is in fact a social democratic MP. When you would expect her to be liberal and left-wing, she turns out to be conservative, confessional, right-wing and worst of all, a hypocrite.
What no one seems to have reminded Marlene is that most people who go through separation do not enjoy the same financial status she enjoys. Her partner is a popular medical practitioner and she is a dentist who in her ‘spare time’ restores farmhouses to sell them.
The point is this: Marlene could afford to leave her husband and home. But the rest of us do not remove molars for a living. Women who cannot afford leaving an abusive husband, are without a legal solution that can guarantee them a livelihood should they leave the family home.
I am sorry Marlene, but if no one has the guts to tell you in your face that you can’t speak against divorce and then live the life of a divorcee, then I will. Most people who separate have problems to make ends meet, they wish to start a new life under a perfectly legal regime and within a legal framework that gives them security.
Someone should tell Marlene to cross the floor and go back to the Nationalists. The only problem is that probably, the PN is more liberal than the MLP.
My delusion with Labour continues. Instead of encountering modern, forward-looking MPs, we continue to meet traditional representatives such as the former anti-EU campaigner Anthony Agius Decelis, a new Labur MP who is (my gosh!) taking umbrage at the fact that a beer brand is parading an attractive female backside on a prominent billboard.
Really, Agius Decelis should be told that the concrete jungle of urbanisation is far more offensive than the wonders of the female bottom. On behalf of men worldwide… grow up.
Can someone help me out of this morass? I am suffocating.