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editorial
Contradictions
galore
The decision to award an additional paid up free vacation to public
sector employees to coincide with the Pope’s visit is typical
of a government that preaches one thing and does another.
The Federation of Industry has not minced its words over this issue,
choosing, instead, to address the question with some reasonable
comments.
Why should private taxpayers subsidise public sector employees to
have an extra day off? they asked.
The public sector, together with the private sector, will be having
28 vacation days this year, apart from national holidays.
And on top of all the half days and sick leave, which is used by
countless employees, this Papal day is one too many.
We cannot but welcome the Pope to Malta. But we agree wholeheartedly
with the FOI’s argument that the government is setting a bad
example.
This is a government that has awarded its employees with wage increases
and what one expects now is a follow up linked to work ethic and
efficiency.
If one seeks proof of this, then one need only focus on the basic
services that we subsidise; the police, the army, the health services,
the electricity and water corporations, to mention but a few.
The reality is that the private sector continues to bear the brunt
of these costs and not the public sector, which remains aardvark
in agility and sloth in response.
If the government needs to send a message it has to prove this by
action rather than words.
And more contradictions …
Drive or better still, hike through Malta and Gozo and encounter
it all; lush gardens and high walls surrounding villas. Brown clad
wardens, ill thought of signs, parking blocks and police on motorcycles.
Soldiers at roadblocks, big advertisements, garish show rooms, flyovers,
flashy cars, designer clothes and international franchises.
Overhead; aircraft departing and arriving, a helicopter with passengers
for Gozo, ferries braving the channel, foreign currency dispensers,
foreign banks, gaudy or elegant shopping malls, shady or colourful
nightclubs and much, much more.
All around us we are given the impression of modernity and civilisation.
All around we are surrounded by that unabated consumerism
Now, let us look at the flip side.
We know what to expect; crater avenues, power cuts as common occurrences
and of course water cuts.
Rubble and garbage alongside our streets and in our countryside,
plastic everywhere. Filthy beaches, ugly legal and illegal buildings.
To add to this confusion we are faced with a regime of laws and
by-laws which verge on the bizarre. But the only ones that get enforced
are those captained by the brown- shirts.
Those that dispense tickets because they are fuelled by quota systems.
But despite the attempts to instil organisation, we remain a paradox,
a disorganised, a shabby, a mind-your-own-business sort of Island.
When we grumble over Maghtab we do not ask ourselves why we continue
to consume relentlessly. We all cry out for our countryside, but
we are the ones that pillage it or build on it.
We all plead for less traffic but we all drive a car.
Truly we are no different from other societies; full of contradiction,
hypocrisy and pretensions.
But the worst thing we could do is try to be more European than
we truly are.
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