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The cracks or break-up of the GWU has offered some helpful respite to the Nationalist posse at Pietà. There is little doubt in my mind that the PN will try their best to flog this horse for as long as it takes.
This is one of those stories you pray will land in your lap minutes before the closure of an electoral campaign. Wishful thinking, Wenz!
With the former MLP deputy leader George Abela representing the new union, there is much speculation about the implication that this is a battle of wits between George Abela and the Alfred Sant-backed GWU.
But it is not really the case. Everyone knows that although there is no love lost between the Labour party and George Abela, the MLP would rather see Tony Zarb take another cruise in the icy fjords of Norway, to stay out of trouble.
They may have not asked Tony Zarb to stay away, but they have surely been piercing their voodoo dolls with rusty needles in the hope that Tony might consider staying out of trouble. Because in their minds they know the only remaining factor that could drown their chances of an electoral victory is Tony Zarb and Gejtu Mercieca, his pit bull terrier.
There will be many attempts in the PN press to rekindle this debacle, but it will do little to diminish the fact that the Nationalists have one fundamental problem: a lame government, wizened and aged after 20 years of administration, with an uninspiring leadership.
Their ministers are possibly the governmental equivalent of Dad’s Army with the unique exception of one or two individuals – any prompting of names is not in place.
In the UK, Tony Blair is forced into committing himself to leave the premiership. And yet his government has been in power for less than ten years. The Nationalists have been in power since 1987. If they elect themselves by some miracle, they will be with us for a quarter of a century. Even my goldfish at home deserve better.
The economy in the UK is fine and never has been better; in Malta the economy is not performing well despite all the figures thrown at us by Tonio Fenech. People in the UK simply want a change. In Malta they could not give a hoot.
And there are those who argue that Sant is bad news, which is indeed probable, yet not the point in question. The fact remains that democracy is about making changes. And those changes are also not always for the better.
It is clear that Alfred Sant wants to re-enact a Mintoff’s return. In the late fifties Mintoff failed to complete his mandate and was replaced by a Nationalist government and spent a far longer period in Opposition than Alfred Sant. He hung on, and like Sant, he was a very angry man and felt cheated from the premiership.
In 1971 he returned, with a vengeance. His first five years were sort of okay, the last eleven were a disaster.
In 2008, Alfred Sant has a very good shot at victory. The first thing that will happen is that he will change people in the civil service according to their political allegiance. The political patronage that Fenech Adami himself had promised he would destroy, has now been ingrained in Maltese society. And Nationalist candidature, allegiance and adoration guarantees jobs in any one of the dozens of boards and commissions that spring up from various ministries.
If Alfred Sant is elected there will be a weak opposition and my guess is that Lawrence Gonzi will retain the PN leadership, no matter what many think.
It will be a repeat of the Borg Olivier years, a time for the media to play its part as the real opposition, and naturally having Alfred not taking it lightly with the media.
Blair’s charisma did wonders to keep him in power, but even his new third way has done little to quell the sensation that his time is up. Today, there is a feeling that the time is up for the Nationalists. Today’s Nationalists have none of the Blair charisma or luck.
The contagious disgruntlement in die-hard Nationalists remains difficult to gauge. It is best understood by taking a look at the depressed level of purchasing power in the middle classes.
Little can we understand that even the plight of the dock workers fails to excite the middle classes. It is perfectly understandable: for years the dock workers, unionised under the GWU, were the stumbling block to industrial reform. Indeed the word dock workers, is very much a misnomer. Most dock workers have incomes that would put to shame the many middle class families who have difficulty keeping up with their monthly bills.
So just to remind all the disgruntled voters of the impossibility that George Abela might be partial to that much talked about and indeed misplaced rumour that he’d consider a return to the MLP in the vestige of leader. Even Abela knows this is an impossibility.
He knows he lost his chance of ever leading the Labour party when Sant lost in 1998. Since then, his foothold in the Labour HQ has diminished if not evaporated altogether. And he will regret that moment for the rest of his life.
The real chance for George Abela is to set up a new movement together with others. Because this country is calling out for a new political movement. And yet, anyone who has been around long enough knows that Abela will not enter into such a venture. It is sad to say the least, but we do get what we deserve.
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There is this little silly story about crisis management. It goes likes this.
If you need to take a decision, a good decision, avoid involving the people who will profit from the decision taken. It is like asking the hunters to decide on the future of hunting.
In former times we called it common sense. Simple.
Later, we decided to tag it as “a conflict of interest” (the lack of common sense, that is) and in the near future, we might possibly edge closer to call it by its real name, a sensible decision.
The function of most of the government-appointed boards, commissions and committees which range from the insular and network-ridden University of Malta to the Malta Tourism Authority, are captained by people who are directly involved or implicated in the decisions they take.
Now we have taken this mediocrity to unusual new highs. If it is a broadcasting authority set up to impose political parity and fairness, who do we appoint to impose this constitutional obligation? The PN’s and MLP’s representatives, of course.
If it is the PBS, it’s the same sort of cronies to ensure that the editorial board can cut off any TV production not consonant with the doctrine of the government in power.
Most of the commissions and boards are peppered with people who have one agenda, one brief and one aim. To serve the government of the day or their interests, without fail.
Tourism is a most boring subject and it has taken up more editorials and opinions than it deserves. What has not been discussed and debated is the way the hoteliers, tour operators and players in the industry have basically turned tourism into their own fiefdom. Why have we left the running of MTA to them in the first place?
Just see what they have done with our money and the branding exercise which came with it. There is no segment of the Maltese economy that has been so heavily subsidised and supported as tourism and yet, we are fed the idea that the tourism industry is suffering because of lack of funds.
The saddest example is seeing pictures of Malta advertised abroad. You get the impression that everywhere is idyllic and pristine: beaches, clear waters, green pastures, historic centres and smiling folk. Little do you know that the cranes have been obliterated by computer software and the sulky looking tourists replaced by busty colgate-advert smiling brunettes with an adorably submissive male, complete with a plastic smile.
Everyone conveniently forgets that the majority of hotels have been constructed on public land or land that had been sold for a pittance. By a pittance I mean less than Lm100,000.
Victor Borg of Ta’ Cenc fame is probably the only entrepreneur to have forked out Lm6 million for his land. No wonder he wants to let loose the bulldozers into Ta’ Cenc and destroy that part of Gozo forever.
The story goes on. Tour operators, advertising and other marketing tools have been provided for, all paid by the Maltese taxpayer. There have been other less apparent aid programmes, the banks have been unusually flexible in providing vast loans for horrendous and ill-thought out tourist projects.
Any small business employing even three staff members are asked to present a business plan to the banks, not a business idea, whereas many hoteliers have been allowed to ram ahead with their projects without any contingency fiscal planning.
Now, the last straw are the low cost airlines, a welcome development, but at what cost to the Maltese taxpayer? Has anyone asked what will be forked out to cater for these low cost airlines?
Anyone else who runs a business in Malta has no fiscal advantages. There is no venture capital, banks do not offer business loans unless collateral is offered and if you are looking for a tax break, look elsewhere. In Central Europe, collateral is not an obligation. Here overzealous Anglo-Saxon banking practices have poisoned our way of working.
Worse still, if you are a stuffy, French businessman wishing to run away from France’s ugly tax regime, and possibly considering a move to this island, you have no one to talk to, unless of course you want to travel 1500 km to Marseille where you will find a French part-timer who works there for Malta Enterprise.
There is this misnomer that the tourism industry is the driver in our economy. As millions are siphoned off to the Malta Tourism Authority, not even 10 per cent of that budget is on offer at Malta Enterprise for local business.
And enterprise in the eyes of Gonzi is foreign investment. They should start looking at the local industrial base. In France, Germany and Italy, when they talk of the economy they measure success by the number of ‘commercial entities’ and their turnover that is returned into the economy.
Success is not measured by how many cars you import or by how many hotels you build or how much land or penthouses you have screwed up or developed. Economy is calculated by the hours of work and the relation to productivity.
This is how success is measured, not by the presence of an office in a skyscraper overlooking Paceville that could possibly represent a company that pays 4 per cent tax to the Maltese state and employs four foreign staff.
There are so many misconceptions that we start believing incorrect interpretations. One of the singular and most notable success stories related like a fable was the one by Romwald Lungaro Mifsud about his commando operation to close the MTA offices abroad. Was it such a good idea, after all?
My colleagues in Paris tell me that it was an awful mistake. Yet, everyone thinks that it was a damn good idea, just because an audit firm came up with the idea that one way of cutting costs was to close the offices abroad. It is like saying that the best way to save some money in a restaurant is to remove all the waiters.
There has been much talk of a new way of politics. But I guess what we really need is a bloody good sweep. A visionary with a five-year mandate and supported by all men and women of good faith.
No name dropping please…
sbalzan@mediatoday.com.mt
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