A Greek tragedy with a Maltese flavour

The decision by Finance Minister Tonio Fenech to raise money by basically losing out on the lease of the terminal at the Malta International Airport and the cruise liner terminal at Viset to a public owned company to inject money into the coffers for the City Gate project is perhaps synonymous of this government's planning approach.

First the prime minister dreams of a project and starts to wonder who the hell is going to pay for it.

He may not take decisions but he sure has a wild share of crazy dreams from the White Rocks project, to the wind farms in deep water.

It is a Greek tragedy in a Maltese setting.

The current rumour is that the Nationalist Party is a poor party and so is the government. The same cannot be said of the small clique of big business and the middlemen who have associated themselves with the Nationalist Party and the government who have made themselves rich.

Over the years, instead of saving money to be able to invest in infrastructural projects, the government has sold its silver and lost out on the chance of sound investment.

It is truly a case of short-term planning and corrupt government.

And yes, we are corrupt, such in the same way the pre-1987 government was corrupt, promulgating its own people for its own interests.

The line between patronage and meritocracy simply does not exist.

We built MIA and an airfield in 1992 to sell it off years later for a pittance.  The Austrians make the money and justify their one man presence at MIA by saying that they pay tax.

Jolly good.

The same for the HSBC banks and others such as Maltacom, and the same for so many other agencies such as Maltapost and the Freeport.

Just take a look at what Palumbo is doing at the dockyard.

Looking at the shareholders of the new leasing company set up to take over the lease at MIA and Viset; Malita Investment Ltd and one can get a taste of why so many of the blue eyed boys and girls love to be appointed on these boards.

Just browse through the appointments of all these people on the respective government boards and just imagine what remuneration is paid to them in one calendar year.

In their quest to think about themselves they have forgotten about the fate of most of the companies. And they have run them aground.

They are an unprofessional bunch, who sit on boards without the slightest clue of what they are managing.

Proof of their ability to manage or implement a sound financial policy - one need only look at the state of Enemalta and all the other government owned companies.

When government decided to privatise, it did it the wrong way.

Instead of allowing privatisation to benefit the consumer and business, the opposite happened.

When we privatised gas, we allowed Liquigas to play around with its prices on the assumption that gas was more expensive on the international market.

But this is simply not true.

Liquigas buys gas in such large amounts, it cannot play around with prices, and it also has high expenses which appear to be much higher than the smaller Easygas company, which is far more flexible and can buy smaller quantities according to market demands.

Liquigas is clearly against any form of competition and has gone so far as to claim the opposite, by insisting that the international price of gas did go up... when in fact, the reverse was true.

Today, MaltaToday publishes PLATTS gas prices and proves that what Liquigas has been saying is untrue. The whole privatisation process has been flawed and yet, no one questions this.

Just take a look at who benefited from MIA and who made the millions. Air Malta - the ailing company led by Peter Davies who thinks his own airline is "crap" - sold its duty free shops to one of Michael Bianchi's companies.

Mr Bianchi is also a shareholder at MIA and more than that. If there is anyone one should think of in the privatisation drive it is Bianchi. He is the broker and he is the low profile man who makes the millions with his lucky strikes.

But let's leave Bianchi out for a minute.

Mr Fenech thinks that his parliamentary resolution will be blessed by all his members of parliament. Has he done his homework? I do not believe all his parliamentarians will support his resolution.

On the eve of a recession, Fenech is in desperate need of funds for a project which in all fairness is ill-timed. This special purpose vehicle is exactly what took Greece down the tunnel of fiscal disaster. The petty politicians who preach common sense and diligence on the part of the public, are the worst offenders of all.

Tonio Fenech (as well as, more than ever, his prime minister) is like someone who walks into a restaurant and orders a Petrus, Belon oysters, Volga caviar, wild pigeon, pasta with white truffles and God knows what else, only to realise he has no money to pay for the extravagance when the bill arrives.

This is an irresponsible government.

And this has nothing to do with good business sense, and has everything to do with creating  a special purpose vehicle which will sells shares to the public but obviously leaves the lion's share to the interested business parties such as MIA and Viset.

This kind of motion will obviously raise a lot of eyebrows. But not enough eyebrows to stop Tonio Fenech.

The only people who can stop Tonio Fenech are his own colleagues from his own party who can shoot down this motion in a one-seat majority in parliament. The same deputies who have lost faith and have little respect for the present leadership.

It is perhaps opportune to see that the Labour Party has moved a motion asking for the resignation of Richard Cachia Caruana. Needless to say this motion may also tickle the fancy of some Nationalist MPs. Perhaps this time around the Labour Party has done its homework.

I have heard that this time, they actually have. But I'm not too sure. Well, it could well be that we are entering the last phase of this great farce.