Interviewed by journalist Godfrey Grima at the end of the Foundation for Human Resources Development annual conference yesterday, Dr Galea said: “We have erred. There have been instances where people were chosen not due to their competence but also due to political and partisan interests.” Asked about the perception that the government is a very bad employer, and how it was going to deliver now that it was being forced to do so, Dr Galea said that the country is living in a paradigm shift.

“We need to seize this moment to get a new structural relationship between government and the people,” he said.

He admitted that the government does not have a good communications strategy either with its employees or with the general public.

Asked how government was going to reduce its expenditure, Dr Galea said that government has been trying to reduce its expenditure for some time. However, he said that although reducing expense was important, one must also see how the money is actually spent. One must aim for “better-quality” expenditure. “Quality comes not with less investment but with more investment. The challenge is to make your expenditure in a more effective manner – every single cent has to effectively go where it is needed.”

And this is the direction in which Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi is moving, said Dr Galea.

Asked how he envisaged the future, Dr Galea said that government was seeing “a clear future with many problems”. Next week, he said, the Prime Minister was going to indicate some of the solutions.

As to the ill-fated social pact, Dr Galea said that government had tried to produce a social pact which would have had the least impact on those who are most disadvantaged.

However, government “will not seek to please everybody all the time. It is not expecting applause. There will be people who will suffer,” he said.

The process for the restructuring of the economy will last until 2010, but certain key reforms such as privatisation, welfare, pensions, health and education will already have been concluded in two years’ time, said Dr Galea. Asked when government is going to deliver, he said: “I am not a prophet.”

However, Dr Galea said that “it takes more than two to tango. If the social pact had been agreed upon, then we would have done it faster. The government has a responsibility to move forward and take the whatever decisions are necessary.” Moreover, political parties had not yet managed to agree on certain matters and remove them from the political agenda. Sometimes the PN failed in this respect, he said.

Asked when the government was going to reduce taxation, Dr Galea said: “We want greater economic growth. If this growth is sustained, then direct taxation reduction might be looked at.”

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