Editorial • 24 November 2002

ToonToday: Collective games

Budget day and plan B

Tomorrow is budget day and everyone will be waiting earnestly to listen to what John Dalli will have to announce. For once Xarabank may well lose its record audience rating – this one promises to be a winner.

But whether it will be a winner in providing the solutions and direction for the future still has to be seen.

The reasons that budgets are evocative and popular events is because of the impact and changes it imposes on every sector and segment of Maltese society. Surely, the public in general are more interested in what they stand to gain or lose. The other statistics and figures are more of a concern for the economists and the spin doctors in the political field.

Many, perhaps far too many refuse to get involved in debates which take into account general policies which have a long term bearing on the country. But this trend is changing. The environment for example is one issue that goes beyond the n.i.m.b.y. syndrome and is an expression of a new culture.

Today, more and more people are calling for accountability and responsibility in the way government spends money, which origin from the taxes collected.

The government acting to deliver solely for its electoral base is doomed to failure, sooner or later. One hopes that tomorrow will look to the long-term and the future.

In recent years there has been far less short term planning. There is a general consensus that we must plan for the future and avoid moving the goalposts to suit short irrelevant periods. The removal of VAT was a case in point which should serve to illustrate the futility of short term policies.

Thank God, today’s politicians are more forward looking than the politicians that administered this country in former years.

We are at a crucial period in our history. By 2004 we can either be EU members or retire to limbo.

The limbo or plan B scenario is no plan at all.

The limbo or plan B strategy is something projected by the Labour party. It has no frills to it other than the simple message that it offers to stay out and build on a partnership agreement with the EU.

The same as the EU has formulated with Arab nations and developing countries.

The budget that will be presented tomorrow will undoubtedly take into consideration that there is only one plan, and that plan takes us lock, stock and barrel into membership. We have in the last three years watched as the government has scrambled to get its act together in terms of legislation and set up to fit into the European Union model.

It is very much like someone wanting to get married and sacrificing time and money to organise a worthy marriage.

Europe must be at the centre of this economic vision and so when we listen to Finance minister John Dalli we hope that he will make it is abundantly clear what is in store for us in the years to come.

Success at PBS

Congratulations are due for PBS in its ratings in the Broadcasting Authority survey. A cursory look at the survey’s results reaffirms the lead of Xarabank with a startling following of 165,000.

The survey also underlines the decline in viewer ship for the political television stations, a trend is both interesting and significant.