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Immigration, euro changeover, the March local councils and the unions are likely to be the issues dominating the political agenda in 2006. However as a survey published in today’s issue of MaltaToday shows, anxiety over employment is fast becoming a theme issue and not without reason.
Events are known to derail governments and as happened this year with the ‘reported’ drastic increase in the price of oil, unforeseen events are likely to have an impact on the local political scene.
Following this ‘Year of the migrant’ we look forward to seeing the opening of other open centres.
The jest of representatives of the open centre donating money to a charitable cause as acknowledgment of the goodwill shown to them in Malta amplifies the value of these centres. They symbolise the appreciation of immigrants living in the open centres to the hospitality shown to them by the Maltese. These centres acknowledge the dignity of the person.
This contrasts with the restricted conditions under which persons living in the detention centres live. This only serves to make the migrant who arrives unwittingly and unwillingly in Malta a frustrated and antagonistic person. The lack of freedom is an issue in the detention centres. We hope that people will start considering their diversity as a value which can enrich our society by integrating them in our labour force.
The euro changeover needs to be implemented with much care. In other countries particularly Italy, the changeover has allowed service providers and retailers to simply round up prices leading to inflationary increases.
The Gonzi Government is well advised to start insisting shops and service providers quote prices in both the Maltese lira and the euro. This will serve to prepare a soft landing of the new currency when introduced. An inflationary changeover will only further dent our competitive edge.
The fast approaching local councils serve as an annual opinion poll on the parties popularity among the electorate. It will be interesting to see if yet again the election serves to establish the predominance of the Labour party in these annual political contests. Such has been the trend in the last few years. We augur the parties could reach agreement on having these elections on a two to three-year basis, sparing the country from all the unnecessary tension, aggravation and cost this brings about, especially as evidenced on the two party political media.
The error of judgment shown by the union over the Sea Malta affair is likely to have a further impact on how Government deals with the union. There can be little doubt that government is feeling extremely buoyant after taking Sea Malta into liquidation. It smells a diminished General Workers Union. Traditionally, this has been the Nationalists’ trump card prior to each and every local council contestation.
Beyond these likely issues we augur that the year is put to good use. Government must carry on with its reforms in the health, pension and ‘employment’ sectors. Government companies need to be made more competitive. The privatisation process must carry on but it must be consumer-driven and not debt reduction driven which is a positive spin-off of the process. The raison d’être of the privatisation process is to give better value to the consumer. It is indeed questionable if this has been the case for bank users paying higher charges, or airport users paying a higher airport charge. Neither has the process led to increased competition which is the consumer’s strongest protection. Introducing strong brand names to Malta is positive but the benefits of the process need to be felt most at the lowest of levels. Failing which the privatisation process will simply be perceived as an excuse to reduce staff complements.
Essentially the increased benefits felt by the bank employees who are definitely better off under new management need to be felt also by the consumer who essentially is the reason for the existence of the bank.
The challenges facing our country boil down to making it more competitive so as to attract foreign investment and to boost our exports. This is not an easy job. It involves taking hard decisions and having ministers willing to see them through. Establishing a competitive economy means putting an end to subsidies and running lean operations with just the amount of employees which are necessary. It involves having a lean public sector and doing away with the discriminatory two class employee status whereby the public sector employees work with no risk having a job for life while private employees are subject to market forces. The result is that the public sector employee is being financed by the private sector. This is unacceptable. Has government got what it takes to see these reforms through?
This is the only year left in which government can take hard decisions. In a year’s time all will be in election mode!
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