Most politicians sail with the wind. A few tack into the wind. Eddie Fenech Adami raised wind and threw the Maltese economy into a morass of national debt.

Fenech Adami, the “village lawyer”, was a political artist who knew instinctively that the feel-good factor is an opiate admirably suited for the pursuit of populist policies.

Ortega y Gasset once defined genius as the ability to invent one’s own occupation. Fenech Adami proved him right. He did not make his mark on local politics until he won a parliamentary seat by way of a casual election, and his first public office was that of Prime Minister. He made politics an extension of inner turmoils and saw history as his biography.

His political style enabled him to gatecrash into the pantheon of Maltese politics: the feel-good factor helped greatly to propel his crusade for Malta’s accession to the European Union.

Fawning scribblers have written about Fenech Adami’s political background, offering many a butler’s-eye view – a cumulative record written by subordinates who stood near and saw much, but understood nothing.

At the time he was catapulted into office in 1987, Malta had just passed through a phase of social upheaval, characterised by a high degree of political polarisation, pock-marked by violent incidents, during which the island’s infrastructure had been neglected.

The immediate challenge

He applied himself to this immediate challenge. The war cry was “Money no Problem”. And he proceeded to borrow, relying mainly on local resources, which were plentiful and readily available for attractive returns.

Malta’s public debt, which had hovered around the Lm70 million mark for some years, and had declined to Lm63 million by l986, suddenly shot up to Lm86 million by the end of l987. It has been rising at a galloping rate ever since.

At the initial stages, public investments yielded results, notably in the form of a brand new airport terminal. A spurt in public expenditure reinvigorated the economy; it created new employment opportunities, kept the contractors happy and generally ignited the debilitated private sector. The feel good factor became a reality

Fenech Adami rode on the crest of the wave and kept on borrowing. The public debt began to soar and grew into a monster. Suffice it to say that by l996, when there was a brief change of government, the national debt had sky rocketed to Lm514 million!

A good proportion of the debt went to make the bureaucracy cosier and to give birth to a proliferation of quangos.

A system was devised whereby the government began to spend as if there was no tomorrow, not caring one hoot about frugality and the need to cut the suit according to the available cloth.

The Fenech Adami administration’s propensity to burn public funds developed into an obsession. From the Chambray debacle, it staggered from one blunder to another, including the investment in new Gozo ferries, the AzzurraAir misadventure, the Brindisi flop, the capricious property deal in Brussels and the Mater Dei Hospital project that developed into a white elephant.

The cost

The trick was to keep the populace happy by borrowing from it – and, feeling good, the populace danced to the Fenech Adami tune.

The result was a structural deficit, which went on feeding itself by way of massive debt servicing costs.

So much so that, by last November, Malta’s national debt had escalated to Lml.36 BILLION, which called for an annual debt servicing bill approximating Lm80 million!

Once Malta had acceded to the European Union, the EU Commission took stock of the situation and issued a general alert. It demanded an instant Convergence Programme. And now, someone has to pick up the Fenech Adami administration’s bill.

For sure, it will not be Fenech Adami. In a lightning stroke, there was a game of musical chairs where, Fenech Adami relinquished the PN leadership and the premiership, whereupon his successor, Dr Lawrence Gonzi, instantly elevated Fenech Adami to the status of President.

Vanished feel-good factor

It was Dr Gonzi who was humiliated by the crucible of the Convergence Programme. It may have been “poetic justice”, because Dr Gonzi was co-responsible for the situation he found himself in.

From the moment he was so pilloried, the feel-good factor vanished into thin air. And the enticing vision of an EU cornucopia, which went on to spur the feel-good climate of the Fenech Adami years, has suddenly turned sour, raising the uninviting prospect of a bread-and-water diet in the immediate years to come for many families.

Only last week, the National Statistics Office published an outline of the government’s financial performance during the first 11 months of 2004. It transpired that outstanding government debt, at the end of November, increased by Lm119 million (by 9.6 per cent) over the previous year. During the period under review, the government’s borrowing requirement, at Lm99.9 million, was in excess of that registered for the previous year. And recurrent public expenditure (excluding public debt servicing) was still rising, and exceeded the comparative 2003 outlay by 5.3 per cent.

The interest component of public debt servicing costs increased by Lm5.7 million.

All this indicates that, far from clearing the mess, the Gonzi administration has a stiff uphill climb ahead.

There are now a good many electors who have lost their fascination with Fenech Adami, the politician. Their disillusion is irrelevant.

What matters is the new reality. The Maltese economy is in a mess. Can the electorate trust the politicians who led Malta into this mess Can these same politicians rescue the Maltese economy from its plight? Unless they come clean and admit their mistakes, can these politicians be expected to do any better?

Is there a hope in hell that the Maltese economic engine can ever be re-ignited, unless Malta’s productive resources, namely its workforce and the initiative of the self-employed population, are harnessed and given the wherewithal to work, earn and spend?

Can the Maltese economy survive under an administration that persists in its reliance on more and more quangos, at the expense of an overtaxed population base?

Is it not high time to be realistic and change course, towards a future where the government will seek revenue from productivity increases, rather than from a steadily impoverished electorate that no longer feels good?

The Fenech Adami years belong to the distant past. Their deceptive feel-good aura has turned out to be a mirage that developed into a veritable chimera, first for Dr Gonzi, and then to the Maltese electorate at large.

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