If the political parties want a political manifesto that captures the attention of the voters, all they have to do is to adopt the pastoral letter of the Gozo Bishop Mario Grech on social justice. It was high time that a member of the Church spoke out aloud about the subject, and I admit that it must have taken a lot of prayer and courage from the bishop to come upfront and speak out boldly and clearly on the subject. There is no doubt in my mind that inequality and discrimination is what is making the voters helpless and leaving them breathless.
Enforcement notices and direct action is taken by MEPA but not enforced so that establishments are left to operate and the authorities, including the health authorities have no eyes to see. Consider that in Gozo the health authorities are still turning a blind eye to a restaurant in Il-Bajja ta’ Mgarr ix-Xini, limits of Sannat which is also recommended on the newspapers for its good food, but which is not covered by any permit.
Imagine how the health authorities on the Tigné seafront see no breach of public health laws when those garages which were transformed in coffee shops enclosed their back yards to transform them into kitchens, with the result that it is causing health problems fort the residents above. But again the health authorities see nothing wrong in this.
Again, the question of encroachment: I know that the Parliamentary Secretary is doing a good job and so is the Lands Department, but permits are issued by MEPA for a number of tables and chairs outside and with the condition that the restaurant owners leave a passageway for pedestrians. But the police see no wrongdoing. As I already suggested, such MEPA permits must be put up in the restaurant place so that the public will know what covers which in that restaurant or coffee shop.
The Bishop also talked the abuses in social services and warned that those who cheat the authorities to qualify for social assistance are committing a social injustice; he quoted a typical case when a person gains from unemployment benefit and still works on the side. It is true that these people are committing this sin, but it is also true that the State is allowing them to do so.
When I highlighted this point some weeks ago in this paper, the Commissioner of VAT was prompt in replying that his department refers to the ETC every VAT registered person; I am sorry that it should be the other way round. First that person registers with the ETC, and it is upon registration that he is entitled to register for VAT. The VAT department is not an employment corporation and it is the duty of the ETC to ensure that the law is amended, so that there is no application for any trading activity unless it is first endorsed by ETC by an employment registration number.
I am not saying anything out of this world. In Australia, for example, you cannot even open a bank account without an employment registration number and it makes sense because any income has to have a legitimate source. There are banks in Malta even give credit facilities to unemployed persons – do we need to go further than that?
Last week I witnessed another example of how the State is allowing these abuses: a client of mine whose husband receives unemployment benefit received confirmation from the Malta Tourism Authority that her husband is registered as the manager of a wine bar. This is the same case as of those who applied for a license to host foreign students, and when they innocently told the Department of Social Security that they host these students, their social assistance stopped and now they have to refund this money.
All this confusion is created and all this public money gets wasted because nobody sees the need for making employment registration compulsory before applying for any license or service or even before purchasing or selling any property.
It is the system which makes the people abuse it, and if some homework gets done before applications are processed a lot of money, time and effort will be saved.
But politics is politics and there seems to be no political will from the politicians to put taxpayers’ money before votes.
The Bishop was right in saying that citizens have a right to monitor how public funds are spent. It is unjust for big businessmen to be pardoned from paying a big chunk of taxes while the State finds itself without resources for the children’s cancer ward and the renal unit. I admit that the NGOs raising funds for these wards do wonders but at the same time, I am not convinced they are doing the right thing in shouldering what should be the government’s responsibility.
The fundraising for these wards is something that any government in power should be ashamed of. Sometimes I get the feeling that it is the same as collecting for the missions in countries plagued by corrupt governments. I remember once hearing a missionary telling the pilgrims during mass not to send money to Brazil where he was working, because this only helps to embrace the corrupt government of the day. In fact, the question that automatically crops up is whether by raising this money, we are blessing the policy of governments to be rich with the rich and poor with the poor.
In Malta unfortunately anything goes. First we allow gambling shops to flourish and now we close them and confiscate the machines. Any person in his right mind would have never allowed this to happen. It is puerile for the government to argue that these people opened the business at their own risk. Any government in his right mind would have never allowed these shops to open at all.
Of course we agree with the regulations but we also know that the regulations were there before the Minister of Finance took over and as usually happens, what is done under one minister is not seen in the same light by the other. So that instead of publishing the existing draft straightaway and amending it, we wasted all this time and gave a field day to the owners of these gambling shops.
The death of the girl who was diving to raise funds for Id-Dar tal-Providenza went by as if nothing happened. People who were on site tell you that the girl was still scared, and that anybody who went there could become a diver for the day by simple following a brief demonstration that was done on the spot. Of course, nothing happened and the Police considered her death as pure accident. But this is Malta.
The Bishop also spoke about the abuse in the retail prices. This is no joke as the government is trying to make it seem. The suggestion by Labour for the government to start importing essential items is not something that the government should overlook but instead polish the idea further. We cannot continue to live in a jungle of prices where everything is more expensive than any country in the EU.
Silvio Berlusconi, who is considered to be more right-wing than our government, introduced the price-watch and nobody pictures him as embracing socialist practices. But we tend to fool anybody who comes up with a suggestion for the common good and when any government in power adopts such an approach, its arrogance will be its downfall.
We have now reached a stage in this country where we are not seeing any return for the taxes that we paid: the return is only being seen by dishonest or powerful citizens. As Bishop Mario Grech stated: “God helps those who wish to free themselves of unjust attitudes.”
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There is no doubt in my mind that inequality and discrimination is what is making the voters helpless and leaving them breathless. 
