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Surely readers are as bored as I am reading about politics and politicians. And yet there is this sadist streak in all of us to return to the subject. Sadism is distinct from masochism, so it hurts to hear politicians from both sides of the divide, egging me on to take a stand, a position, to fly the flag for one of their parties.
This is not only a Maltese malaise: it is a European, global phenomena. Politicians in Greece, Italy, France, the US and of course in Blair country, expect the media to either paint everything white or black. Needless to say, my soul – if I have one – has not been sold. And I could of course start my opinion by saying: “Jolly good news at HSBC, really great!” I could go on, and say: “You see, the economy is really doing well, did you hear BOV has had a 92% increase in profits? Can you believe that?”
And for the Labour-leaning I would have a different tune: “You know, Sant was really sounding pro-business at the Radisson.” And: “I really like the way Labour have copied the PN’s fancy style with their Ta’Qali May 1 celebration.”
And for the Greens: “Cassola is really a great guy and I am sure he will find a way of putting Malta on the Italian agenda.”
It would, would it not, be another of those opinions that would happily line the cat bowl or the mackerel in one of those cute alleys in Qormi. Journalism and opinion writing is supposed to be the reverse of a flunky piece. And that is why when Tonio Fenech, through one of Malta’s more renowned spin journalists, announced that price orders were being considered, I could have hugged Lino Spiteri when he said in sister newspaper Business Today that “the irony that the present government is speaking of price orders is inescapable.”
Unlike Tonio Fenech, who was nine running on ten years in the early eighties, we all remember the eighties for the war… yes, the war waged by the Nationalist party on price orders. When Tonio was playing subbuteo, his peers were fomenting the business and entrepreneurial Maltese spirit and arguing against price orders. Mintoff stood for price orders, old socialism and the state monopoly stood for control. The PN stood for a pro-business approach.
Now, because the ‘authorities’ that have been created by the PN have failed, in his wisdom Tonio wants to take us back to the good old days of DOM. a tin of Mackerel, 14c7. Not a mil more, not a mil less.
You have to imagine that as they (the politicians) read this opinion, they are probably saying, “you see… Saviour wants to see us toppled. He wants to see Labour back.” Unbelievable. Just bloody unbelievable. The PN is acting like the Labour Party and they accuse anyone of being Labour stooges if they accuse them of being like old Labour.
Well read on, because if I have to say something I will simply say it. Setting a price order on products is not only old fashioned. It is a throwback to the past. It gives power to the state to intervene. It kills the spirit of the free market and worse of all, it shows that what we are doing is not because we have to do it but just because the European plutocrats are telling us to do it.
“Tonio, tell them to sod themselves and take a stand.” Which takes me to the other episode that confirms the PN has either lost its soul, or else it wishes to serve both the devil and God at the same time. The port workers controversy has an interesting twist to it.
Well, Victor Scerri as we all know is the president of the PN General Council. He also happens to be a prospective PN candidate in the Qormi constituency. And just for some background info, most of the port workers hail from Qormi. So far so good!
Now the PN as we know, wants port reform. By reform one imagines a better deal, more efficiency and reduced costs. But what is abundantly clear is that Victor Scerri is serving as legal advisor to port workers, two of them staunch Nationalist with family links to a very senior PN official.
Well Victor Scerri, who is saying that he needs to earn his daily bread as a lawyer, has not explained or clarified that many of his so called clients are not run of the mill clients. They are also constituents. Voters, in other words.
Now Qormi port workers are renowned for their behaviour. I do not mean bad behaviour, but you do not find Qormi port workers standing in for valet service when the Queen pops over to sunny Malta. They are noisy, pushy characters who make pots of money thanks to a monopoly that has been handed over to them as a result of archaic rules and patronage. They are anathema to the idea of a free market.
And when Victor Scerri stands as party spokesman, he applauds and gaggles very much in the same way Peter Darmanin does about the need to change this Malta. The word “bidla” could have been a registered marketing tool for the PN in the nineties.
Well, what Victor Scerri is doing is arguing for some of his clients to continue doing what they have always done. Some of his clients are ‘shore foremen’, with the job of supervising and handing over the tools. But better still, they are paid even when most of the work on containers is carried out by machines and are loaded on the quay by mechanised cranes. More interestingly these ‘shore foreman’ are paid according to the tonne when containers leave the islands empty. Worse still – and I urge Victor Scerri to contradict me on this one – the ‘shore foremen’ are never present when containers leave the ports and are still paid for it, because that is what the old rules state.
Dr Scerri has a problem.
And he may call me a pain, and a negative person, but he cannot say that I do not champion port reform. I love reform. The problem with people like Dr Scerri is that they are no longer in synch with what the Nationalist stood for. When Notary Charles Mangion was chastised by this paper for having denigrated the sale of Pender Place and then served as the notary for the deal, many, including him, thought that this was okay.
It is not okay. It is like having a priest counselling couples on the virtue of sex in marriage and monogamy and celibacy before marriage, and then pursuing active sex with adults. Sorry for the example, I am sure that this has never happened (so ungracious, this Saviour).
But back to Dr Scerri. Scerri is no run of the mill PN official – not that it really matters in a party where decisions are taken by three perhaps two people. He is at the top. He is also the figurehead in what is supposedly the visionary platform for PN policies. And now, he wants to retain the status quo.
Lawrence Gonzi and some of his ministers wish to save money and promote efficiency. They could start by calling in the Malta Maritime Authority chairman, Mr Bonello, and ask him why every tonne imported into Malta and handled in the ports comes with a contribution of 32c5 to a pension fund for port workers. Worse still, they could ask why shipping agents have to pay 32c5 twice over for every tonne in Malta. And if my calculations are right, the port workers’ pension funds runs into millions, enough to pay for the entire Brussels super-embassy, and the whitewashed embassies in Paris, Rome and London sixty times over.
If Dr Gonzi wants to save money and reform the ports he should do away with these Mintoffian legacies. It is baffling but not a word about this from the Chamber of Commerce and the FOI. Just unbelievable!
At this point, for the sake of parity, the boys in Pietà are expecting for my onslaught on Labour. Sorry guys, since Labour has very intelligently opted to say nothing in an attempt to avoid gaffes, I have no comments to make, so better luck next week.
Actually, what I could say about Labour is that its attempt to replicate the PN events that were such a success in the 80s and 90s could indeed work. Labour is trying very hard to present itself as new, fresh, moderate, middle class and not militant, old and outdated. Very much like it did in 1996 with its anti-VAT and pro-hunting agenda.
I do not believe that I have ever said something nice about Georg Sapiano. Last Saturday he hosted Michael Falzon, the PN guy, in his traditional one-to-one hardtalk. Georg agreed in his inimitable way with Falzon’s rendition of the eighties, the eighties being the years when Labour ran the state by thuggery.
Labour has protested, arguing that Sapiano was on state TV and that he should have had someone from the Labour party. To balance out I would imagine. To balance out what? To say that Karen Grech and other bombs where orchestrated by Nationalist diehards? That the 80s were the golden age for Labour nightmares like il-Fusellu, il-Pupa and il-Qahbu, and that Mintoff had the knack of fanning the flames to turn his acolytes into gorillas is not fiction, but fact.
I have no problem with Sapiano having an angle in his shows. The problem with Radju Malta and TVM is that the whole current affairs set-up are designed for Nationalist leaning journalists. It could be Radio 101 or Net.
Why cannot someone like Wenzu Mintoff or Toni Abela have a slot there too? What is the problem? Please do not find an excuse by saying that Wenzu and Toni are potential Labour candidates. I could say the same for Georg. Why are we so uptight about having diversity on national TV?
But then I forget. To Austin Gatt this not a priority and surely Zammit Dimech’s audio-visual consultant Joe Borg (the Reverend) who hopped from one ministry to the other (for a better description) is too busy thinking about the big picture. To Dr Gatt, national TV is all about turning the balance sheets from red to blue. Just like his capolavoro at Tug Malta, which surprisingly increased its rates by 25% (part of the holistic port reform by the way) and then presented a balance sheet glittering in blue ink.
I had just forgotten. “Hello, does anyone want to buy Tug Malta? It is making a profit.”
sbalzan@mediatoday.com.mt
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