The Tsipras government promised to implement in three years an impressive list of measures that should bring about an improvement in the governance and income of the Greek government. Some of the measures proposed actually add to the austerity that the government has wanted to remove, instead of subtracting from it. The Europeans demanded further measures down this road.

The proposed “reforms” are unviable. This has got nothing to do with whether Greece’s present leaders can be trusted or not.

The fact is that Greee’s administrative and social machine will not be able to implement the listed “reforms” so fast.

It is a pity that Dominique Strauss Kahn got embroiled in scandal and exited the financial scene. Of all the proposals made regarding how Greece’s new bailout should be organised, the suggestions he advanced two weeks ago seem to me to be the most realistic, not least because they fully take into account the inadequacies in the country’s public administration.

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Security measures

Since the fifties of the previous century, there remain only two areas of the public sector where practically little change has occurred in the educational requirements set for job applicants: the army and the police. In other sectors, the level of qualifications demanded has risen significantly.

Indeed the academic standard of all entrants to the security forces needs to rise quite substantially, For a long time the need has been felt for a much better academic preparation of workers in the security forces. This of course is a general statement, for then there are a good number of personnel  in the police and the army who are truly on the ball.

When Guido De Marco was minister of the interior, a police academy was set up to offer training courses to serving policemen. Unfortunately this was another example of how in Malta we tend to put the cart before the horse. The priority is not to set up new institutions that fade out in a short while, as much as to ensure that the right training is being provided. And this is best and more durably done by arrangement with existing educational establishments.

Above all, it is crucial to ensure that the educational attainments of entrants to the army and the police are raised. The political parties dislike such an option for it limits the scope of patronage in favour of party stalwarts whose zeal must compensate for their lack of schooling.

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Poverty

We all know that poverty has been on the rise in Europe. The same seems to be happening in Malta, even if here economic growth has accellerated.

There is a poverty that prompts you to see how it can be relieved, and there’s a poverty that just turns you off.

The latter is that kind of poverty that has become used to sloth and inertia while expecting as a matter of right and with no personal effort, to find support. In recent years, the political response to this has been the removal of benefits to people who in the eyes of society, just want to lie back and laze away their lives. Social support is cut off.

However there are children and other dependents who are not responsible for the sloth of their carers. They too are being “punished”.

And forgotten.