|
Last Sunday, the commentary flowed as I described how state television’s chief executive, a certain Debono, answered Karl Schembri’s question on the l-Istrina tender. Debono refused to answer the question claiming he would not play to the journalist’s “transparent albeit hidden agenda”.
What a silly contradiction. Perhaps pointing it out to Debono was a little bit kind.
Well, three days later PBS decides to cancel a contractual agreement with the company that publishes this newspaper.
Now, there is little to prove that the two episodes are connected. But there is nothing to prove that there is no connection. My suspicion is that Mr Debono has taken the traditional course portrayed in so many Charles Bronson films – he called it vendetta.
It could of course be a supposition, but when the PBS representative came back with a past-its-sell-by date excuse that the reason behind the contractual cancellation was because of a lack of feedback from the PBS adverts in MaltaToday, I could only laugh. Needless to say, someone needs to tell the rep that PBS have no means to gauge the impact of an advert which calls on people to listen to their radio station on 106.6.
And if no one is listening to 106.6, it is not because of the advert in MaltaToday.
Needless to say, Mr Debono’s over-reaction, if we are to believe that this is a reaction, is unacceptable. The accountant who landed himself in the public post of the state TV’s top job is apparently oblivious of his obligations.
Debono is basically treating the media with disdain and disrepute. He has not understood that PBS is not a grocery shop. In a grocery you can smile to whoever you like, sulk at the nasty clients, offer credit to the charming young mothers, and insist for immediate payment from debt-ridden customers.
PBS is all about the Public Broadcasting Service – and Mr Debono has to come to terms with his role. PBS is not Smash TV.
If he wants to get at MaltaToday all he has to do is burn down the bloody newspaper, not tear up a contractual agreement. We used to worry over the Pelligrinis of yesteryear, but now we have to contend with the Debonos – accountants being asked to be the face of the Maltese public broadcaster.
How did we get this far? Who can we blame?
In the preface to a masterly book on the Middle East, journalist Robert Fisk attempts to find a definition for journalism. His book is a captivating narrative of his experience in the Middle East. Ranging from the encounters with Bin Laden to his life on the Iraqi-Iranian border, to the US’s double standards and disregard for the tragedy of these peoples.
This eventually leads him to come up with one singular meaning for journalism – challenging the authorities. Now tell that to Alfred Sant, Lawrence Gonzi, the chief at PBS, the chairman of the Broadcasting Authority and big business. It is a daring description. Journalism is not a precise science, Fisk says, but it is far nobler than the twisted truth emanating from governments, their institutions and their mouthpieces.
Fisk has very few kind words for politicians, which is okay by me, all wrong by them. The important thing is to report the events not as they are brought to you by the interested parties, but through one’s enquiring and suspicious pen. Fisk underlines the value of knowing your history, a handicap many journalists in Malta, including myself, tend to neglect. It is important to remind people of history, and the impression it has left on people and their politics.
I am sick and tired of hearing people from both sides of the political divide and the unions, arguing that MaltaToday is some Trojan horse. Others argue we are a ploy for a third party, a disguise for the Labour party, perhaps for the Nationalists or for the Greens.
Can everyone just accept that we are here to do just one thing? To write, report and analyse and to hell with the rest of it?
The other day, I was told that top officials in the cafeteria at the GWU were arguing that MaltaToday would at the eleventh hour appear at the foot of the Trojan horse and burn Troy. Troy being the Labour party.
If I were there, I would have told them that the Labour party already has its own Achilles and he does not need a newspaper to do the job.
Over the last twenty or more years in reporting and writing I have been scolded for being ‘personal’ and abrasive. The inspiration to be Northern European in our journalistic traits is no coincidence. If the Brits can be commended for something it is their hard-hitting journalism. Journalists have not stopped the likes of Tony Blair from invading Iraq but they have succeeded in turning public opinion against Blair by simply publishing the truth about Iraq.
Which takes me to the latest false impression fuelled by the Maltese government, that all is well in the state of Denmark when it comes to the economy. Look at the figures, we are told by government’s spinners. It is like a business with a healthy balance sheet but no dividends or profits to dispense to its shareholders. The truth is that no matter how many times they repeat the same story of numbers, businesses in general are suffering and there is little or no support from the authorities.
Meeting newly posted ambassadors from the European Union, I hear them reiterate how important Europe is and how their country is a better place to live in, today. I say it easy to declare that Europe is a ‘better’ thing, but not when the Maltese government chooses to approach Europe à la carte.
Take taxation – the middle class and small business are the prime target of taxation but the biggest offenders, the contractors and speculators, retain their status of ‘untouchables’. The impression given that government would impose tougher rules on bank loans to speculators, and a better trail on cash payments and cash deposits, leaves these ravenous tax evaders out of the loop.
Recently I took off time to look at a property which was for sale. The first shock was the price but the thing that really kicked me in the teeth was the under-declaration insisted by everyone – the sellers, the real estate agents and everyone else. When I consulted my notary friend, he made it very clear that this was the order of the day.
The biggest segment of the economy that sees large transactions of thousands if not millions of liri, is the construction industry. Yet, Mr Tonio Fenech has been reluctant to take that bold step and stop the abuse. No, it is far easier to confront the sitting duck in a small office, with nowhere to hide.
When it comes to collection of service tax (VAT) Malta retains one of the best systems in the whole wide world. France, Italy and Germany do not have the same type of fiscal receipt management we have. And that is how it should be, but when it comes to the real transactions, the real figures are shrouded in official deeds and private agreements.
Most notaries, not all, are fully aware of this, but are basically at the mercy of their clients. Everyone from the Prime Minister to the bank manager is aware of this reality, but ask them what have they done about it. The answer is repeatedly “Ghalxejn!” (it’s useless…).
Which takes me straight back to the economy. For a feel-good factor, the government needs to give back, invest, regenerate and to reinvest. To do this, it needs money and that money cannot only find its origins in the middle class.
It is not only infrastructure that the government should be investing in, but smaller ways for bigger things, initiatives for small business and more importantly, investing in new projects which involve new people and not the same blue eyed boys.
For years, the old boys’ network has been greased with state subsidies and direct intervention. They have become millionaires on state aid and political favouritism. Free public land, special tax regimes, free factory space, no scrutiny over creative accounting, direct subventions and many others.
At our expense, the big boys’ network has multiplied, grown and left the straggling middle and lower middle class with crumbs. Then you meet these sycophants who talk of how important the big boys are to Malta, and never how good Malta has been to them. Needless to say they insist on forgetting on how benevolent the State has been towards a very few select group of untouchables.
If there is one big enterprise which needs pampering, it is ST Microelectronics. When Gene Gretchen, the American chief executive of this company, was invited to lecture on corporate social responsibility at a Business Today seminar, I was struck by the absence of any senior government minister and of course, Miss Molly the American ambassador.
Mr Gretchen is not one who seeks media attention but he should. His company’s presence in Malta offers the most significant turnover for any one company in Malta and the most important employer on the island, and from a US standpoint a very valued company trading in literally millions of dollars.
If ST loses out, Malta loses out and NSO statistics go haywire. Needless to say, both the Maltese and US officials found better things to do that morning. But then I guess Maltese politicians are more attuned to appear in press events dominated by their own agenda, and US ambassadors more accustomed to setting the agenda themselves.
Mr Gretchen posed many important questions about corporate social responsibility. If we take his words for real, then we should be proud to host ST Microelectronics in Malta. The company, a giant by all means, applies its social responsibility criteria in any of its locations uniformly. I was struck by his insistence that if the ST plant in China would apply environmental standards it would be similar to those applied in any plant in the world, be it France or Malta. ST would not take advantage of the lax situation (my words) in China.
It was rather illustrative to note that although only 1% of all customers would choose a product based on its social responsibility, that 1% would be significant for the company’s ‘competitiveness’. He added that today in the New York Stock exchange, 11% of all transactions are based on whether companies are socially responsible.
George Pullicino has pointed out that I wasn’t faithful on his delivery at the Kunsill Generali. That is what telephones are for on a Sunday morning, to remind editors of their misdemeanours. He said that he did not say the NGOs had a hidden agenda as I wrote in my opinion – he said it was some environmentalists, not NGOs. I concede that I was inaccurate and promise to burn in hell for that awful mistake, but not before my next question – which environmentalists?
Answering such a question will probably lead to more questions. In reality, and this is something which George P hasn’t told me yet, is that he appears to be under siege from all sides: the greens, the environmentalists, the NGOs (with and without their hidden agenda), the media, and worst of all his Cabinet colleagues.
What George P needs is to ask himself why he has such a perception problem when it comes to green matters. Is it because people are so intrinsically nasty towards him, or is it because somewhere along the line something has gone awfully wrong?
Compared to many of his colleagues in the Cabinet, George P is the one who harbours a fair and sizeable number of grey cells, is more to the left than to the right, more liberal than conservative, likes to be called a visionary and has the lusty appetite for hard-nosed politics.
He needs to rethink part of his style and ask himself what has gone wrong.
Illum is out next week. Be sure to order your first copy from your newsagents or bookshop. It is a proud moment. With the present team and many others including those who never get a mention most especially from the technical side, Illum should strike a chord with those readers who yearn for a Maltese newspaper and who are sick and tired of the propaganda-ridden Maltese print media.
When I started writing in a newspaper 25 years ago it was for a Maltese newspaper, and it fills me with pride to know we shall be writing in our wonderful, national and first language, to drive home the message and the sentiment.
Illum will be different from the rest, but it will share a common soul with MaltaToday and Business Today. It will challenge all the authorities, rather than serve them.
|
