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They will hate me for writing this, but I am sure most of the readers will concur. Here we go. The roads we build are from Italian protocol money not European Union funds. Ironically the Italian protocol will be no more as a result of our membership. The Italian protocol has been with us since the seventies, yet it is only now we are building roads as they should be built. Beats me why now.
The splendid sprucing up of all the roads the CHOGM Head of States are expected to utilise are financed by local funds. The monies that sustain the warden system and the companies that employ them and make thousands in profits are from our monies not Brussels.
The Mater Dei hospital to be completed on Lawrence Gonzi’s birthday in 2007 is supported by Maltese liri and not a centime of EU money. The VAT we collect and siphon to Europe originate from the Maltese taxpayer. The immigrants that drift our way and are ignored by the Italians but taken on board by the Armed Forces and dependent on our generosity will not see one free packet of EU rice.
Every morning, Joe Citizen rightfully asks himself: what the hell are we doing in Europe?
The answers he gets are confused and depressing: hunting is as rampant as ever… Maghtab still burns… political parties still own TV stations… the debate on divorce is a no go issue… abortion debate is a taboo.
Those who still hang on to their europhilia are either the MEPs who earn literally ten times the salary of a Maltese employee, and Richard, the unelected cabinet minister, who waits in earnest for the asbestos-ridden palace at Rue Archimedes to be completed.
Others blinded by the European dream believe that membership is all about the ‘EU citizens only’ signage at the airport passport control, even though some still wonder how it can be that a black man from London carries a British passport or how the French passport officer at Orly is, my God – BLACKKK!!
That higher ideal of Europe we dreamt of when we sang “Iva Malta fl-Ewropa” like teenagers stuffed with space cakes should be reworded to sound “Iva l-Ewropa ghaliha u mhux ghalik.”
The other day I sat patiently in a restaurant on the shoreline at Balluta waiting to be served. We sat to a disappointing waiter service and an unsatisfactory supper. It was not only that. What is even more shocking was the aroma of Maghtab that greeted us.
For someone who has spent more than four decades living on a rock called Malta, scooping mussels amid the heavy smell of Maghtab a year and a half into EU membership makes it all the more frustrating. The only EU thing about that evening was my bill, it had the total in euros, a staggering 91euros.
And I ask myself, why has this happened? We still have not seen any marked improvement to our quality of life – our politicians are unable to make the most of Europe.
Why are businesses worse off? “Give it time,” they insist. But we have waited for too long. Everything around us seems to be crumbling. In his haste to sell off all the silver, Austin G has forgotten where privatisation is going and that privatisation is not only about removing dead wood but improving and making things more efficient.
Investment is measured no longer in terms of jobs but in the number of companies registered with the MFSA and the profits the local banks make in the transfer of their accounts to Malta to avoid company tax. The real winners are definitely the lawyers and go-betweens.
We have to ask ourselves how has European membership improved our life in general. In terms of statistical growth, we are the most lethargic of all the ten new members. We have to ask ourselves, is this what to expect?
In my case my idea of EU is for a more secular society, a freer society, where culture is given a new dimension, a country where nature can be given a chance and where business can grow in a dynamic way where ideas and hard work, matters not whom you happen to know. We have imposed the most stringent laws on cigarette smoking – which is not such a bad idea after all. But we have chosen to implement them where we deem fit only.
We have opened up the markets to bad and cheap foreign wines only to realise that the world has not really changed, more so with the prices of most of the wines returning slowly and surely to their former prices.
Worse than having those cheap, high-alcohol French and Italian wines, we have instilled a bad feeling for the people with liquidity and led them to fly away and invest in property abroad.
We complain about not collecting enough taxes, but believe it or not, we have the most stringent VAT receipt system in the world. The French and Germans have a VAT system that looks like a colander.
We have all our environmental standards enshrined in stone but they do not see the light of day because the politicians do not wish for it.
Europe has been the Vaseline jelly for getting things done, but it has changed nothing of our mediocrity. Tonio Borg still thinks our place in Europe is as a satellite of the Vatican. A few months ago he wanted to make our constitution a reference point for Benedictine monks by including an abortion clause. When he failed he called the liberal press all sorts of silly names.
Our MEPs remain the most conservative of all the deputies in the Brussels parliament, only interested and concerned in how they are perceived back at home. They vote with their constituency in mind, and not with their mind. If it is European standards we wish for, then so be it. But if that is all we want then let us forget about this EU membership dream and let’s phone Barroso and inform him we are leaving the club.
It is time, folks, to face the music.
We want to be Maltese. We are content with our buses emitting smoke, our hunters shooting down every bird that flies, our separated couples to remain without an option for divorce, our electoral system to remain untouched, our political parties to own TV stations, our saints to be celebrated with petards and fireworks, our golf courses to be constructed over natural sites, to retain our lira, to sell our public companies for a pittance and to continue believing that we are the centre of the world.
The death of five lads on a newly constructed road raises the issue of safety on our roads. It is a tragedy that cannot go unanswered. The answer is not a speed camera. The last thing that should happen is to restrain the speed limits on wonderful tarmacked roads to 30km per hour.
What we need are checks on over-speeding. Visit roads in Gozo and Malta after eleven at night and you get the impression that it is adrenaline and/or alcohol that is doing the driving. What happened on the Zebbug road could have been linked with something altogether unrelated to drink. But it raises the question why traffic policemen and traffic wardens seem to evaporate into thin air after 7pm. There are no checks on drink and driving, there are no checks on speed limits. And young people aged 13 and 14 can roam about freely as they please from bar to bar.
The answer to this is simple – the traffic policemen and wardens are after money collecting and not imposing standards in our driving. This is a personal tragedy for the parents and friends of the five boys. This is a wake-up call.
Salvu Sciberras is a Nationalist councillor on the Naxxar council. He would not be a councillor if he were not on a Nationalist ticket, indeed he would be a nobody where it not for the PN and his unfailing loyalty to Fenech Adami and Louis Deguara.
When he was appointed as a board member on the Maltacom board, he was selected not because of his unique understanding of the telecommunications industry but because he was a diligent Nationalist diehard.
In the world of politics they call it nepotism, a choice based not on meritocracy but political allegiance.
If you have nothing better to do, you should read his letter in the letters pages. He writes to defend Fatima, his mayor. I will not go into all the details, apart from saying that I stand by what I said. I am quite amused by his inability to gauge my cynical lingo. It could be as good old Bocca once said, that I write from my arse, hence the confusion.
When I described myself and the residents for being morons, he suggested that I should thank the Naxxar residents for accepting me in the village. You see – Naxxar has this thing of being a state within a state. Having lived in Naxxar for 20 years does not seem long enough for Saviour Scibberas even though I would not have expected someone who was born in Kercem, Gozo (and not Naxxar) to profess such xenophobic ideas. Well what do you know… a Naxxar Gozitan preaching to a Naxxar Balzan.
I have some words for my good friend Oskar, my dog, accused unfairly by Sciberras for urinating at the door of the local council. Oskar has told me that he is hurt by these allegations, and as a Maltese dog he would like to plead his innocence.
Oskar argues that he is not a public being and insists that his privacy should be respected. Furthermore he adds that he traditionally urinates along the Ficus trees on the road down to Kind’s showroom and most of the time he leaves his scent on the hills off Mgarr. Indeed, he prefers the aromatic garigue to the dirty roads of Labour avenue.
Confused and infuriated by these comments he calls on Mr Sciberras to apologise publicly, failing which Oskar will take all the necessary steps to safeguard his reputation and rights as a Maltese dog, resident in Naxxar for 44 dog years.
The Armed Forces are not a bunch of lazybones. Three heroic soldiers saved immigrants from drowning and one of the MaltaToday journalists requested the AFM for an interview with the men. It was turned down. Three cheers to the government’s public relations machine.
sbalzan@mediatoday.com.mt
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