We could say that this winter has been particularly tough weather wise. We have had heavy downpours, really strong winds and very low temperatures for quite long periods.
The meteorologists may deny that anything unusual has been taking place. They show us averages which confirm that nothing extraordinary has happened. A couple of sunny days can mask the real picture.
But we know that it was not any average winter and since the New Year we have spent more time at home by the heater than we might do normally.
As the country transcends into a new leadership, over the past two years, we have the same sense of our condition as we do with the weather. Some may say it is normal and all is well and others may say that a couple of sunny days do not make up for the cold and storms.
We can ask what has been done? But rather than ticking the boxes, much of what has been taking place under Muscat has been more about undoing than doing.
From the start, it appears there has been a roadmap to undo vital policies and hard decisions taken by the previous administration and to manipulate the style of rule to the extent that one can hardly recognise it and the boundaries are really all quite blurred.
The first evident undoing was seen in our integrity. The citizenship scheme or Individual Investor Programme (the liberty that is taken with the word investor or investment is quite absurd), no matter how lucrative it may be, definitely undid the integrity of our nation. There can be no denying that shame was brought upon us and no twisting and turning of words can repair the damage done to our good name. Here was a country, that until now was well respected and admired for significant achievements in a time of recession and political change, suddenly portrayed as a weak and greedy opportunist. With a little patience and respect, we could have achieved more in the way of long-term and real investment for the country, than by the sudden flash flood coming from the sale of passports.
Then we saw the deliberate and irresponsible undoing of the army and police corps. The first undoing was towards the work of the courts and the police, with the general amnesty to the prisoners, without proper weight being given to serious crimes and respect for the victims. This was followed by the removal of worthy and proven figures such as Brigadier
Martin Xuereb and by the blatant transfers and promotions which destroyed years of real investment in areas of professional achievement such as with the SAG and in the army. Years of education and experience have been lost to the nation for the sake of undoing the past and the government pretending it is carrying out a mandate.
Most evident has been the undoing of the environment. Whatever the NGO environmentalists thought to do before the election, they could have not been more undone than in the area of protection from over development. It began with the separation of the subdivisions at Mepa into a planning authority, where the environment will be joined to the Malta Resources Authority and anything to do with heritage will fall under Superintendence of Cultural Heritage. It kept on unravelling with the changes to the ODZ map and dubious new projects, not least the tanker in Marsaxlokk.
Another bee in the government’s bonnet was Arriva. They could not wait to undo this company and immediately set about running it down so that there was no other option but for it to leave. We all wanted to have a strong management and new vision for the public transport sector, but to simply expect Arriva to deliver in such biased conditions, while being very generous with the public’s money when it came to other operators, was the opposite of doing.
The civil service was a symbol of the mind at work behind the agenda of the new cabinet. To remove the Permanent Secretaries and start installing unrestricted persons of trust, coming mainly from Super One and from billboard personas certainly ensured that decades of protocol and method of administration in the civil service were abolished. Many instances of this undoing are coming to light, such as with the resignation of the Director of Lands over the complete overriding of his authority and role in the Cafe Premier case and over Australia Hall.
This brings us to undoing of court cases from Premier toA ustralia hall, to the judgement on the two electoral seats for the opposition. The more that can be undone, the better, it seems. Ombudsman or no ombudsman, irrespective of the moral hazard, expediency is the only way. Parliament is not safe either, as we can see when matters of national concern are hardly discussed, important decisions are taken without going before the people, and contracts never or hardly presented for scrutiny.
Councils also suffered the same fate. The local council elections next month would not even have taken place if it were up to Muscat. Public opinion was strong and a U-turn was made. Reducing funds to the councils, though, is another way of portraying them as weak and ineffectual.
A larger reminder of Gonzi became the next victim, as the Monti was relocated to the foot of our new Parliament. And to ensure that the undoing is as clear as possible, we will have a netball pitch outside Castille and Borg Olivier can hang in a garage, waiting the same fate as Nimrud under ISIS (Nimrud incidentally is the city where The Tower Of Babel was believed to have been built).
Not so with the hunters. The referendum on Spring hunting is the result of the indulgences shown to the hunters by repealing many of the restrictions and regulations that had been put in place to curb abuse and try to effect some protection to nature and allow the public to enjoy the countryside, while allowing hunting to go on in Spring.
But maybe the whammy of them all was the illegal immigration issue. The topic was crucial at the time of the election with many people wishing to see some control on the amount of boats reaching our shores and in our obligations towards those being taken in. But somethings cannot be undone. If Malta is a signatory to conventions and forms part of the international community, we cannot expect a dereliction of duties just because it is expedient to the Government. When Muscat tried to include another option, that of pushbacks, he soon found that this particular obligation could not be undone and we stand more or less in the same boat as we did before. We do hope however, that more can be done by the EU to address this reality more holistically and effectively. No disrespect to the immigrants intended, but to make an analogy, it is like the jellyfish problem in the Mediterranean. Sometimes we are invaded by jellyfish as they multiply greatly and swim from shore to shore. Nobody from beyond the Med countries gives a toss about it until it is time for their Summer holiday at Mallorca, Malta, Sicily or a lovely Greek island and they find that the sea is inhospitable and their vacation spoilt. Then they realise that the problem affects them too.
The BWSC power station was high on the list of undoing. It was to change from heavy fuel oil to gas. Enemalta is no more what it was. Careers have come undone, along with experienced engineers and our national interest. What in fact was meant to be done – the building of a new power station – is nowhere in sight.
The economy has withstood, for now, the reverse employment policy, with scores of jobs being given in the public service sector. Let us pay attention to the words of Eurogroup head Jeroen Dijsselbloem to Greek Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis when he tells him that he may have to admit that he has deceived the people with his commitment to undo the bailout agreements. Some policies may look good in the short term but in the long term we may pay a high price for bringing down the unemployment figures by putting the bill on the state coffers.
It is said however, that Muscat enjoys the trust of the people at a still relatively high level considering the scandals that have been happening. That was one area where he did not have to undo anything of the previous government because trust was something that had been lost. But whether we can really say that trust is enjoying a revival amongst the population and its leaders is rather doubtful. It is however, his to be lost and the opposition’s to gain.