One of the main reasons why the financial services sector has been such a success story in Malta is that in spite of the political divide between the two major political forces on the island, both sides have shown great maturity since the early 1990s and thus contributed in no small way to the achievement of these noble objectives.

This does not mean that there is still not much to do in this sector and that certain decisions are above criticism, but as long as one agrees with the overall objectives and strategy – which we always did, one can continue to move forward with relative ease, without hiccups and without experiencing any sea changes that could poison the economic climate of the island.

As main Opposition spokesperson on Foreign Affairs and IT I see no reason why the same should not apply to these two sectors too.

On this occasion I will limit myself to the ICT sector, particularly since many are still reeling, following the typically abrupt and arrogantly dismissive manner in which the caretaker ICT Minister decided to turn down the Labour leader’s public call for national consensus in this important growth sector of the Maltese economy.

Alas, Minister Gatt always tends to adopt a “hands I win, tails you lose” approach.

The moment you criticise him you are accused of trying to scare foreign investment and MNCs away from the island, and anytime you choose to find fault with any of his or his Head of Secretariat’s dictates, you run the risk of being dismissed as being technological averse.

The childish and facile reason that he gave for flatly turning down the MLP’s call for national consensus was that there could be no consensus in this sector so long as the MLP continues to show a streak of incompetence.

This contrasts sharply with his concluding remarks at the end of the Budget 2008 debate when he actually praised my intervention on ICT in Parliament and actually went on record as stating – as supported by the parliamentary debate proceedings – that I seem to have the ICT sector very close to my heart. Although he tried to add on one of his usual barbs by suggesting and implying that I nevertheless did not have the support or encouragement of the party leadership.

This is far from the case.

Since Alfred Sant had appointed me Shadow Minister for IT in 2003, there might have been a number of instances where I publicly criticised the methodology applied by the Minister when taking certain measures, as well as the involvement of his Head of Secretariat in virtually every single mega ICT tender. Including those issued by other ministries. That is at evaluation or adjudication board level.

But when it came to overall government strategy we were always positive overall and had merely limited ourselves to expressing doubts as to whether certain targets would be met or not. Except for logistical and strategic decisions we might have disagreed with, such as whether the government should have opted for outright purchase of PCs in the public sector or PC leasing.

We used the same prudence when government launched its IT strategy in November 2007.

We deliberately refrained from issuing a formal media release not to be perceived as being disruptive or negative.

But we nevertheless carried out our own homework.

And, as I revealed on at least two public occasions so far – during the party’s recent AGM and last Tuesday on Super 1 TV elaborating the 14 basic tenets of the MLP election manifesto – I made it clear that although our ICT vision statement was released in August 2006, when the government published its IT strategy some 15 months later there were at least 30 initiatives that were virtually carried over or almost literally cloned from our own vision statement.

These include:

• the central role of MITTS

• Ministerial ICT leaders

• Major ICT educational institutions

• The concept of e-learning

• The importance of branding Malta (we opted for Malta as an intelligent island while government chose to brand Malta as The Smart Island)

• The repositioning of our national ICT assets

• The leveraging of our technological initiatives including the Smart City project

• The extension of collaborative frameworks

• Higher recognition of information resource management

• The creation of innovative and creative environments and programmes

• The promotion of an ICT Born-Global Business concept

• The role of ICT in the National Curriculum

• The leveraging of our intellectual capital

• A bigger role for private and independent training providers in Malta whereby we can also encourage foreign students to come over to our island to learn ICT in a complementary manner to those who visit to learn English as a foreign language

• The urgent needs of an impetus for and creation of an ICT Centre of Excellence that brings together the University of Malta, MCAST and other ICT entities as a result of which post-tertiary students could even undertake further studies in Research and Development.

• The urgent need to develop an ICT employment strategy

• The promotion of further female participation in the ICT sector

Harnessing the potential of senior citizens.

• The provision of GO DIGITAL Outreach programmes and campaigns

• E-Quality for e-Inclusion

• E-Democracy for e-Governance

• The need to step up the pace of our accessibility efforts in ICT

Use of the Maltese language on the World Wide Web

Hone the skills of government workers

Explore Multiple Service Delivery channels

• Creating better quality jobs

• The importance of an impetus to our cultural heritage by using digital tools (ie in libraries, archives as well as Melitensia itself)

• The concept of e-Tourism

• Promoting a teleworking culture way beyond the mere teleworking pilot project that had been set up until then

• The creation of a Gozo ICT Unit

• Support for SMEs

• Implementing R & D initiatives

• Exploiting vertical strategic alliances

• Revamping ICT Incubation Centres

• Fostering further innovation and participating in the work of the EU Innovation Relay Centre Network for Technology Transfer

• Promoting the local software industry.

In our election manifesto we also added the objective of putting Malta on the map as a Business Process Outsourcing Centre (BPO) in ICT since so far we have not featured on any major international lists as a key centre of activity in this specialised area.

Given that there is so much to innovate, build on, improve and enhance in the coming years, it is a pity that in the same breath that the Minister, according to a recent media release of his, is trying to give the impression that we are scaring the living daylights out of ICT operators in Malta – according to other sources including those in on line gaming. I have various e-mails and reports that people in very high institutional places in this pivotal area are reported to have cautioned that if Labour is elected certain private organisations will suffer, as Labour will dismantle such schemes as MyPotential. I also have first-hand reports that key players were also told not only to vote wisely but also to inform their staff about the repercussions if Labour is elected.

Regardless of this negative and destructive attitude, we shall soldier on, when in government, as of next week, until common sense prevails in the best interests of the Maltese people in general and the ICT industry in particular.

Leo Brincat is Shadow Minister for Foreign Affairs & IT and an MLP

candidate in the General Election