A number of Malta's unions, as well as the Labour and AD political parties, take to the streets today to protest over the country's utility rates and, as the General Workers' Union puts it, to also show "disgust" with the way the country is being run - from its utility rates to hospital waiting lists, and from medicinal prices and to the high cost of living.

But in spite of the public relations threat, the government has made it abundantly and perfectly clear that no matter how many protests are held over the utility rates, it will not budge. It has not budged in the face of earlier protests over the same subject matter and it says it will not budge now either.

In fact, budging from its adopted stance would be out of character for the current government, but then again that is not always a good thing.

The question is: What will people be expecting from the protest, and how disappointed will they be should nothing tangible come of it? What will surely come of it is mileage for the more politically-minded of protesting bodies convening in Valletta today.

The next blow will be tomorrow, when Parliament debates and votes on an Opposition motion on to revoke the current tariffs. Given the fact that party loyalty, although perhaps somewhat tested of late, is still the rule of thumb in the House, the motion will undoubtedly be defeated by the government's parliamentary majority. Of that there is little doubt.

This, it will be perceived by the public at large, and especially by those attending or at least backing today's protest, will be a second blow to those fighting against the rates in as many days and, still impassioned from today's protest, they will see the motion's defeat as having rubbed salt into a very open wound.

What is being created is a potential, and perhaps hoped for, snowball effect - the creation of the setting for a perfect storm, a storm that has been brewing for a long time now as a tangible sense of anti-government apathy grips large swathes of the country.

But speak to anyone who has taken remedial steps of late to cut their electricity consumption and they will confirm their bills have not risen as steeply as they would have otherwise done. That is, after all, part of the reason behind the new and not so improved rates - to force people to rationalise their consumption and to have them pay for what they are actually consuming. The government, it can be convincingly argued, had been subsidising a great deal of waste in the first place, waste that could have been done away with if consumers were to be given the right kind of incentive.

That is what is correct, irrespective of how wrongly or otherwise the actual rates are being calculated. It is a culture shock, and one that the country has been very slow in coming to grips with. Yes, the vulnerable need support, but the middle classes and others certainly do not need to be subsidised for what they perhaps overindulgently consume.

A country such as Malta that is 100 per cent dependent on imported oil for its electricity generation simply cannot afford to do otherwise, if it is to release the grip that the international oil markets indirectly have on its economy.

Could this be a man-made perfect storm, created out of political opportunism or is it merely a natural reaction from people feeling they are living on or fast approaching the financial edge? Judgement here is being reserved, it is the people's call to make.

And more black clouds

While still more black clouds could very well begin gathering over the government following today's protest, there is also the black dust cloud that it appears to be conveniently ignoring, a cloud that is not doing the government or the people any good whatsoever. It is an issue that is far more important than the level of utility rates.

The persisting matter of the black dust plaguing a number of towns in the south of Malta for years and its purportedly mysterious origins has been a continual source of discontent and indeed real concern for several thousands of citizens, many of whom are fearing for the their own health and the health of their families. Such fears are perfectly valid when a government is unable or unwilling to identify a source of pollution that they are witnessing inhaling on an all too frequent basis.

That a government in this day and age is unable to find the source of the black dust portion of the island is simply inexplicable. The government is either completely inept, or it has a concerted interest holding back on its findings - either way it is damned. What also beggars belief is the government's apparent nonchalance over the issue.

Labour MEP Louis Grech deserves to be commended for his stance on the issue at the European Parliament, as well as for his insistence that he will not relent in his efforts at the EP to have the European Commission deal with the matter, given the lack of government action despite so many repeated promises.

The matter is a question of a chemical analysis and the fact that it has not yet been carried out with any success as yet lends significant credence to theories that there is, in fact, something to hide after all - or that the authorities are suffering a bout of complacency on an issue that is affecting and concerning so many people.

Mr Grech and indeed the wider Labour Party are quite correct in demanding action as they have been doing repeatedly.

In the meantime, the government is also dragging its feet excessively over coming in line with EU directives on the issue of PM10 pollution - particulate matter generally found in exhaust fumes, which parts of the island, particularly Gzira and Sliema, suffer high rates of.

As Mr Grech points out in today's issue (see page 3), it is scientifically proven that, because they cannot be filtered in the nose and throat, PM10 particles can settle in the bronchi and lungs and cause health problems. PM pollution is estimated to cause 200,000 deaths per year in Europe

Political motivation or not, both issues direly need urgently addressing if the government's purported green credentials and concerns over its citizen's quality of life are to be even partially believed.