The last echoes of the budget debate have receded almost completely, and all the political vapour has cleared. The audience, who followed the ding-dong battle of slogans and statistics, is more bewildered than ever before.

The average citizen is pinching himself or herself to see if he or she, indeed, ever heard politicians boasting, in recent months, that the economy is “on the right track” and that “a new spring” is on the horizon.

Reality has lifted its veil. Without the cosmetics, its face is unmistakably scarred.

Majority opinion has come round to agree that Malta’s economy has lost its vitality. It lies prostrate under the weight of a structural deficit and mountainous debt. Severely debilitated, it is in urgent need of succour. But here, you have a government which continues to overspend, is determined to proceed with its austerity programme by way of pensions reform and the restructuring of the health and social services sectors, and is committed to implement its Convergence Programme by selling its assets and such one-off devices.

More than ever before, hard-pressed Maltese taxpayers have come to appreciate the wisdom of that Arabic proverb which says that “no one is more truthful than the tongue of experience.”

Debilitated economy

Perhaps belatedly, the penny has dropped. Malta has been administered by the ruling administration practically for the best part of two decades. Yet, the economy is debilitated. The rate of economic growth has lost its former momentum. The performance of our manufacturing industry is deteriorating, as Malta loses its competitiveness. Tourism has failed to take off, and the government’s modest targets have not been reached.

Malta continues to live on borrowed money, and is set to rely increasingly, for its survival, on the sale of its remaining assets.

In so doing, it may succeed in fending-off and placating EU monitors in Brussels. It can only do so until it has assets to sell.

The one and only route towards survival is by way of building a productive base, penetrating overseas markets, and earning our keep through augmented foreign earnings.

The government never had its eye on the ball, in this regard. Its priority was to sustain a deliberate public spending policy, designed to stimulate a feel-good factor, in pursuit of its EU- accession objectives.

That ploy was successful. The cost surfaced later on – and is now expressed in terms of escalating debt, economic damage and creeping social distress.

Fools’ paradise

Meanwhile, ministers behave as if they are living in a fools’ paradise. They proclaim, against all evidence, that the economy is performing well. When accredited spokesmen of the Federation of Industry argue that “the economy has been suffering from sluggish growth on average for the last five years,” ministers look the other way and continue blissfully to sing their mantras.

Reality is a different story. Only last week, the FOI director-general was lamenting that “Malta’s economic performance remains poor and the projected 1.1 per cent growth in real terms for next year is not at all exciting.”

It is far less exciting if one is to go by the projection, established by the economic and monetary directorate of the European Commission, anticipating a mere 0.7 per cent growth in 2006. (If this projection, as reported by The Times correspondent in Brussels on 18 November is correct, the mis-match between the two projections warrants serious investigation for more reasons than one. Opposition Leader Alfred Sant highlighted this glaring discrepancy. If correct, this EU projection gives Dr Gonzi’s game away!)

Hard-nosed Maltese businessmen, who are in the swim, struggling for survival, seem to have come round to the conclusion that “where ignorance is bliss, it is folly to be wise”. Their entreaties to the Gonzi administration have been of no avail. They now speak from the rooftops and resort to the media to plead for common sense.

Citizens’ yardstick

It is against this background that the “budget without taxes” is being assessed by the average Maltese citizen. That same citizen uses his own yardstick for this exercise. Rather than giving weight to the mumbo-jumbo of politicians and spin doctors in the media and at large, the citizen goes by personal experience.

He/she takes his/her bearings with reference to the economic Plimsoll line: – that is whether one is being pushed towards the poverty line or away from it, and whether inflation and rising living costs are setting him/her back. This, more than politics, is the proof of the pudding. If and when the citizen sees the bureaucracy going round in circles, public finances in disarray, the economy in distress, and so many things in a state of abandon, he/she has positive proof that change is the essence for survival.

Surreal budget

What made the budget debate “surreal” was the ambivalence of the prime minister. He wore a halo and rode a high horse to boast about his successful handling of the economy (the budget “brings good news” and “the economy is on the right track”). At the same time, he proclaimed, with a straight face, the need for reform and change, whether it relates to our culture, mindset, work practices, lifestyle, our choices and priorities.

Experience, which is the mother of wisdom, has an instant question in reply to this stance taken by Dr.Gonzi. If his government has the prescription to cure our ailments, why have we been left waiting for so long to usher in change and reform?

Is the promise of reform credible and feasible under a government that has been manning for so long the dam that holds back the tide of progress?

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