They say that money makes the world go round. Personally, I think it would be far more accurate to say that money makes people go nuts.
Take, for instance, the following million dollar question: why does the government of Malta always seem to have enough money to pay university students their stipend... but when it comes to giving university lecturers the pay rise they’ve been owed since 2003, the same government is suddenly as broke as the US Federal Reserve?
The answer is almost too obvious to even bother writing, but I’ll do it all the same. Because there are more than 11,000 students, and only around a couple of hundred university lecturers in total. ‘Nuff said.
OK, now on to question two. Which of the following options would cost the government of Malta MORE money?
a) Retaining the annual recurring expenditure involved in issuing 11,000+ monthly paycheques (in return for... um... nothing), or;
b) Acceding to the lecturers’ demands – possibly after a little downward negotiation – with a view to nipping a potential brain drain in the bud... not to mention meeting the government’s own obligations as an employer (which, last I looked, were supposed to be enforced by law).
Well, no prizes for getting the answer right. We have for so long made a virtue of wasting taxpayers’ money, that any notion of making an investment for the right reason has come to be viewed almost as a Mortal Sin. So naturally, the government of Malta’s reaction to these two cross-directional currents was to immediately cut the university lecturers loose on their life raft, while turning to the students and throwing our money at them like it was confetti. Which, I suppose, is what Gonzi meant when he promised “a safe pair of hands on the tiller”. Humph.
Hang on, I detect a sharp increase in indignation among readers who also happen to be university students... provided such creatures even exist.
Well, sorry folks, but do any of you remember that little debate on campus between the four leaders of the Apocalypse... I mean, of Malta’s political parties... shortly before the election?
I was there, you know. I both saw and heard what it was that makes university students tick. And by my count, there were only four topics addressed during that debate that elicited any form of response or enthusiasm whatsoever.
These were, in no particular order: stipends, stipends, stipends, stipends, and... what was the other one again? Oh yes: STIPENDS.
(I’ve just counted them again, and they amount to five, not four. What can I say? It seems our university students’ sphere of interests was a tiny bit wider than I had imagined...)
But back to the status quo, which is basically a case of robbing lecturers to pay students. Does this make financial sense? Nope. Is anyone complaining about it? Not that I can see... actually, it is quite the other way round.
Far from screaming blue murder at this sacrilegious abuse of taxpayers’ money for purely partisan ends – a practice which would be deemed illegal in most serious democracies – the taxpayers of Malta seem to rejoice at constantly having to fork out more money in return for less.
I mean, just look at them. They gather round their Glorious Finance Minister and pat him on back for a job well done. Way to go, Tonio! You show those greedy, selfish academics who’s boss. You carry on splashing out our hard-earned cash so that those poor, underprivileged students can afford their petrol and booze over the weekend. And never mind if at the same time, your government can’t afford a €55 million subsidy to Enemalta. Pass the expense on to us! After all, there’s nothing we enjoy doing more, than paying higher utility tariffs for the greater glory of Gonzi.
And if the global financial crisis means you can’t deliver on your pre-electoral promise to revise income tax bands... well, who the hell cares? As long as we know our money is being well spent – i.e., to bribe voters into electing the Nationalist Party, over and over and over again – we will be more than happy to carry on footing the bill.
In fact, there is nothing we will more gladly and willingly do, than pay higher taxes than we actually need to, so that the Nationalist Party can carry on benefiting from an eternal blank cheque with which to buy votes.
Yes indeed, Tonio: no matter how much of our money gets flushed down the toilet, we will never, ever, EVER complain... unless, of course, a single centime of it is diverted to bail out the Malta Shipyards.
That, Tonio, we simply will not endure. Do you understand? We might be the most generous country in the world when it comes to funding our 11,000 university students; or buying massive office blocks in Brussels worth €23 million; or running up a bill of €1 million a week, to run a hospital which cost almost €1 billion to build; or spending €130 million on an offshore wind farm which won’t even reduce our carbon footprint by a single square inch...
But if you even so much as think about doing what the United States did to its investment banking sector, and bail out a bunch of ungrateful Laburisti who wouldn’t even vote for your party if ordered to do so by the ghost of San Gorg Preca in person... mark our words: there will be Hell to pay.

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