If proof were ever needed that Opposition Leader Joseph Muscat won the recent parliamentary budget replies between himself and the Prime Minister, this was evident from the near hysterical pitch and gutter language the Prime Minister resorted to last Wednesday with all his expression of disgust – best summarised with his use of the word ‘JAQQ’ – as well as his cheap remarks about smart neckties and make-up.

Joseph won on content, style, presentation, verve and dynamism.

Dr Gonzi meanwhile was in reactive mode, trying to ride the wave merely on one issue – commendable as it may be – the deal clinched regarding the servicing of easyJet aircraft in Malta which should create on average some 60 jobs a year but which admittedly has value added.

What I found spurious is that even when the government is onto a good thing it always tries to exploit it from a purely political angle by sandwiching a long clinched deal through an announcement the day after Joseph’s speech and literally on the eve of Dr Gonzi’s reply. This is manifest proof that Dr Gonzi was far more interested in restoring his tattered credibility than on scoring on the national agenda Richter scale.

But then this is the way the Nationalists do business. Minister Tonio Fenech had done the same last Sunday, preferring to use the party’s general council rather than the House of Representatives to let ‘slip’ the government’s overall estimate of how much utilities are to cost families, at a time when the new tariffs have not yet been published, pending review by the Malta Resources Authority.

One issue which the Prime Minister should have addressed last Wednesday was a fine point made by the Trade Unions’ Confederation chairman, John Bencini, earlier the same day when he said unions wanted to know whether the government had consulted with the Resources Authority before announcing the energy compensation in the budget. The PM also chose to ignore Mr Bencini’s call for clarification as to whether the tariffs would be introduced for a whole year (i.e. even if the price of fuel hypothetically dips) and whether the regulator would be looking into Enemalta’s inefficiencies.

Everything seems to point so much towards a fait accompli that although the PM claimed that he would not like to try to influence the MRA, given the actual price of oil, the electricity tariffs would rise to what they were a year ago, or slightly more. Are we heading towards another typical case of rubber stamping from a toothless MRA that within the coming months will also be handling our climate portfolio with all its heavy demands and challenges?

The way Dr Gonzi began and ended his speech with references to the easyJet deal had the predictability of a seasoned stripper’s final act. The pity is that in trying to climax at the beginning and the end, the in-between was relegated to rhetoric of all shades and hue, which in the final analysis remains mere rhetoric... completely detached from the aspirations, challenges, problems, issues and concerns that the man in the street is experiencing right now, irrespective of his occupation and political orientation.

All this goes to prove that the biggest insurmountable challenge that Dr Gonzi is facing right now is neither the deficit nor unemployment but his own credibility. Do not exclude that in a future reshuffle he might bring in EFA’s son, to endear himself with the EFA roots within the party who are feeling the absence of Eddie from the scene as something which not only fills them with nostalgia but which has also left a big void in their midst given Dr Gonzi’s lacklustre performance as PM, leader and politician in recent months.

Dr Gonzi’s repeated statement that we should judge him by what he does and not by what he says, is already coming to haunt him as the list of unkept promises grows longer by the day.

One can bounce back in politics on various fronts and issues, but alas, credibility is like virginity. Once you lose it, it is gone for ever! And that is indeed the major dilemma being faced by ‘our’ Prime Minister.

My colleague Charles Mangion made an important point last Thursday in another section of the press, when as Shadow Minister for Finance he stated that just a few weeks after the Lehman Brothers debacle, the Finance Minister was projecting a deficit of e99 million for 2009, and now he tells us that this deficit is more likely to be e160 million above that originally forecast.

Dr Gonzi has been failing badly on all counts. Not only on the promises made in the 2009 budget but even more so on those listed in his 2008 election manifesto.

Those expecting a blow by blow reply to Joseph Muscat’s speech of Monday week were in for a bitter disappointment since the PM not only refrained from doing so, but also failed to address many crucial areas that one would have expected him to focus on regarding the budget.

The environment got short shrift right through.

As in the case of the budget itself, Smart City hardly got a mention.

The imbalance between CAPEX budgeted for and actually carried out was ignored.

But the weakest aspect of Dr Gonzi’s speech was when he claimed that his government would continue to fight corruption.

The failure of the Permanent Commission Against Corruption to nail the government on one single corruption case shows that this commission reminds one more of a team of politically appointed Commissars of the Communist era.

Further proof of the government’s deliberate way of treating corruption lightly was in the assertion that Transparency International annual reports are merely based on perceptions rather than reality. The government spokesperson who recently said that his government was addressing real, as opposed to perceived, corruption does not hold any water. In self respecting countries like Finland, such reports as that drawn up annually by Transparency are taken as seriously as one can most imagine, and heads are known to roll when they point an accusing finger in specific directions.

The accusation that Joseph Muscat is using corruption as a battle cry is far from the truth. It is a subject that many people bring up during our home visits with the same concern and preoccupation as they do about the dire economic and financial situation we are presently experiencing as a country. I am sure Dr Gonzi knows this well, but once again, as a result of political expediency, he conveniently chose to gloss over it.

Dr Gonzi told us more than once that the country is not in a crisis. But then this is the same PM – arguably the only one in the EU – who never owned up to the fact that according to its own statistics the country was in a recession.

Now that the EU is moving out of recession, come next budget the government cannot blame any future failures on the recession any more. It will have to literally stand up to be counted without any crutches – real or fabricated – to fall back on.

Dr Gonzi’s own mantra in a speech that lacked vision and that was solely intended to revive his flagging fortunes, was that economic indicators are looking up.

Ironically the day after his speech, your sister newspaper The Malta Business Weekly showed how mistaken he was, when in quoting the third quarterly review issued on the same day of the PM speech by the Central Bank, it made it clear that economic indicators fail to register reversal of the downward trend.

Are we now expected to dismiss the CBM as prophets of gloom and doom too?

No wonder many diehard Nationalists are claiming – God help us live again the Glory Days of EFA!!!! While more moderate ones know very well that change can, might or should happen.



E-mail: brincat.leo@gmail.com

www.leobrincat.com



Leo Brincat is the Main Opposition Spokesperson for the Environment, Sustainable Development and Climate Change.