Many Nationalists were taken aback by a mixed sense of anger and surprise, when a few days ago, a leading Net TV anchorman who has his regular highly followed weekly chat-show hit out at the Gonzi government in his di-ve.com column.
After claiming that with all the hype that the Nationalists are able to create around everything they do, they must also know that at this present moment in time things are looking very bad for them, he stated that old problems facing the leaders of the country have resurfaced.
When he came to refer specifically to PM Lawrence Gonzi, he did not mince words.
He stated that people’s disillusionment with the Prime Minister’s lacklustre performance at home is more evident than ever, adding that the Nationalists’ great hope has lost the shine that held for the best part of his first year in office and now the chips are well and truly down.
On the Nationalists’ penchant for constantly putting Alfred Sant in bad light, the Net TV anchorman concluded that the next time round, the PN may not be able to frighten people with visions of Dr Sant, adding that people may be more frightened of being treated as idiots by the PN again.
I have quoted the article in question practically verbatim to be as fair as can be to both the author of the piece as well as to your esteemed readers.
Consultancies galore
Courtesy of a number of parliamentary questions that I tabled in Parliament recently, I managed to establish the fact that former Central Bank economist Gordon Cordina, who also lectures at university, is doing quite well with the government and parastatal agency consultancies.
From the information provided by various ministers in the House of Representatives, it transpires that apart from doing consultancy work for the Central Bank itself, as well as the MCESD (Maltese Council for Economic and Social Development), the guy in question also sits on the Enemalta Fuel Purchasing Advisory Board, while having secured assignments by the following governmental organisations in recent months :
• Mepa;
• The Welfare Reform Commission;
• Two separate consultancies on behalf of the Gozo Ministry (one of which linked to the director of contracts);
• The ETC among others.
I do not in any way intend to cast any doubts on the person’s technical or academic capabilities. But given his dependence on the government assignments and consultancies, I find it very hard to convince myself how independent he can be in his views and opinion. I am sure that most taxpayers – who are footing the bill for his services – will quite agree.
An appeal to the government
on future privatisations
A few years ago, Finance Minister John Dalli had published a White Paper on the privatisation process. The document carried a number of interesting proposals and ideas. Unfortunately, the government not only failed to publish the feedback that such a discussion document had generated – but even worse – it failed completely in formulating a comprehensive and holistic policy on privatisation that could serve as a guiding light for future privatisations.
Alas, so far, the government has failed to get any of its privatisations right.
Some lacked transparency, while others failed to secure a fair price.
One sincerely hopes that none of these mistakes will be committed when the government moves to privatise Maltacom, the Bank of Valletta and the management of the yacht marinas.
One can agree or disagree about whether a particular organisation or service should be privatised, but the least that one expects is that the government should have a clearly spelt out policy which it will follow and adhere to faithfully to put people’s minds at rest that certain minimum benchmarks are being respected.
The main responsibility might be Austin Gatt’s, but once such privatisations receive the endorsement of the Cabinet, then they become subject to collective responsibility.
email: [email protected]
Leo Brincat is the Main Opposition Spokesperson on Foreign
Affairs and IT