Your correspondent James Debono told us last Sunday that Rev. Dr Joe Inguanez helps the Church understand the political landscape. How does the reverend do this? “By scrutinizing the signs of the times and interpreting in the light of the Gospel.” Now that couldn’t’ sound better, could it? There are certain hints in his answers that are eye-opening. For instance he says that he does not find secularisation (division between state and Church) necessarily threatening. Could that ‘necessarily’ mean ‘depending on the party in power.’
He admits that “given the increasing cost of living in almost every sphere of life, including basics such as food, water and electricity, these people (those on the minimum wage) really are at the risk of poverty.” And he stops there. No comment on what he, as political advisor, expects government to do about the matter. Perhaps we can expected his comments now that the budget has been announced.
He says that ensuring the sustainability of the good welfare state we have will be difficult. The government should, he continues, review the taxation system, chase the big tax evaders, monitor strictly public expenditure, tax the rich more heavily. Few will contradict him on that; expect that many would say: not ‘should’ but ‘should have’ in all three cases. This government goes back twenty years. But it would seem that the reverend sees nothing wrong in the government’s track record.
Asked how he judges the government’s response to the current economic crisis, he answered, unsurprisingly, that “it has passed the test” according to his one major criterion, unemployment. He had no comment on the soaring cost of living. At that point, he claims he is not an economist. He admits that some prices are higher here than in other European countries… but government of course again has no fault in this. It is always the service providers who should be pulled up. And yet government says it is now going to set up a price monitoring system. Come on Fr Inguanez, give us a break.
The reverend advisor becomes much more eloquent when he speaks about the Labour party and its leader Joseph Muscat, Here his criticism flows freely; all of a sudden he dons the economist’s hat which he had just said he didn’t have. He explains Dr Gonzi’s waning popularity by referring to the current economic crisis.
Fr Inguanez ends the interview with advice to the leftist parties (“who tend to retain a strong social consciousness” – it is left to the reader to infer that the present government is weak in this regard): you need an economic model. Again, the economist’s hat! “It is not just ideas which count but putting them in practice,” he says, referring to the Left directly and to Joseph Muscat indirectly.
But then you ask: but what economic model has this government adopted? That of making the rich richer? That of exploding our national debt? That of having a sizeable portion of society poor or on the brink of poverty?
Fr Inguanez seems prone to forget certain realities: he has not read about them, nor heard of them, nor thought about them. The Church deserves some other advisers to fill up these lacunae.
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