There were great expectations when Dr Lawrence Gonzi assumed the leadership of the Nationalist Party and proceeded to take control of the Auberge de Castille. The general assumption was that he was going to introduce a new style of government, bringing in new blood to take over from a team that was well past its sell-by date.

To the surprise of Malta watchers, and to the consternation of his own party well-wishers, he did nothing of the kind. The only significant change was the exit of the most experienced minister – John Dalli – who was not replaced. Dr Gonzi, for reasons best known to him, burdened himself with the added responsibility of the Finance Ministry. And the tired caravan struggled on, navigating by guesswork, and by God, from one mirage to the next.

Mirage

The biggest mirage was the “New Spring”, forecast by Dr Fenech Adami in anticipation of EU accession. Post accession, the hard times became harder still, in terms of stiffer taxation and grim austerity – bringing into stark relief ministerial inertia and incompetence.

The emerging situation bears analysis against the background of contrasting ministerial performances. Some ministers shift their responsibilities to quangos, regulatory bodies and faceless bureaucrats. Others assume a hands-on approach, usurp administrative power and perform like a misguided missile. In these circumstances, career civil servants lose their bearings and the ship of state sails aimlessly or not at all, while ministers travel to all corners of the world, in between cutting ribbons and unveiling commemorative plaques.

As recently as this last May Day, Prime Minister Gonzi was saying that “Malta has a lot going for it”. In an upbeat speech, he painted a positive picture of the current situation in Malta and the island’s future.

Barely a week passed before the European Commission announced that Malta’s real GDP growth is expected to fall from 2.5 per cent in 2005 to l.75 this year. Although the decline is expected to be arrested, the forecast for 2007 – at two per cent – will be inferior to that registered in 2005. This would be lower than the average registered by all EU member States. Painful though it is, this means that Malta is lagging behind.

To claim that Malta’s economy is “on the rebound” borders on the grotesque.

Discontent

Meanwhile, vital day-to-day business piles up, the administrative machine gets clogged up and citizens wallow in their grievances. Public discontent is inevitable. It can be contained some of the time, but it cannot be suppressed indefinitely.

A few examples are sufficient to illustrate what I mean.

1. An inconspicuous news item in the local press, arising from a Parliamentary question, highlighted the fact that no fewer than 1,319 firms and a further 5,274 self-employed persons did not comply with their social security contribution obligations last year. This raises the question as to whether a sizable segment of the business sector is extremely hard-pressed, or whether the bureaucracy is losing its grip of the social security network. The social security system has been up and running for years and ought to be running like clockwork. Obviously it is not

It transpired in Parliament that nine companies were prosecuted last year for having failed to pay contributions totalling Lm574,151.

Isn’t this a case calling for ministerial initiative with a view to tightening up fiscal discipline and, more so, for ministerial accountability as to why thousands have not pay their dues in full, and the dues surrendered by their own employees?

Crisis warning

2. Ministerial inertia in the health sector has become notorious. The Chamber of Commerce has only recently complained that “the government is failing in its duty to pay hospital suppliers within a commercially reasonable time, bypassing its own late payment legislation, and incurring increased bank interest costs and severe cash problems” for medicine-importing firms. Payments due run into millions.

This situation significantly affects the goodwill that overseas suppliers show towards their Maltese agents. In a broader sense, it is a blot on the commercial reputation of the Maltese government.

Yet, the government has money to spend (for example) on the senseless purchase of Dar Malta in Brussels, which it hasn’t been able to put to full use for more than a year, while it allowed this problem to fester

The Chamber of Commerce has highlighted a far bigger issue of public concern relating to the health sector. In fact it has warned that “Malta is facing a serious medical crisis by the end of this year if nothing is done to curb regulation expenses”.

Due to high costs arising from EU directives on drug registration, medicine suppliers overseas have withdrawn products from the Maltese market “to the extent that medicines available here have been reduced by about 7,000 items.” The chamber has warned that Malta might end up with far fewer than 2,000 medicinal items available to the public by 1 January 2007, when new regulations come into force. A factor that increases costs is the requirement to have all medicines certified by the Maltese Medical Authority, duplicating the expensive work performed by similar EU regulatory authorities. Another cost factor is the requirement to translate all information leaflets into the Maltese language

Here is a case when vigorous ministerial intervention at EU level was called for from the word go. The consequences of inertia are too ugly to behold. Yet public opinion has nothing to go by except the complaints on behalf of the importers. The least that one would have expected is for the government to keep Parliament and the general public au courant with the state of play, and the government’s initiatives, if any, to head off a crisis.

Foot-dragging

3. Regulatory bodies like the Malta Resources Authority and the Office for Fair Competition have only recently been in the news – the first for its unexplainable delay to carry out an independent audit of the way fuel-hedging arrangements were being conducted, and the second over its seeming insensitivity when there was a public outcry over the blocking of sport content on Italian TV cannels by a cable TV company.

These and similar burning issues affect the tax-paying citizen. Regulatory bodies are meant to be watchdogs of the public interest. If they dodge national issues or drag their feet in deference to the interests of the big battalions, it is the responsibility of ministers to pounce upon them like a ton of bricks. If and when they don’t, the electorate speculates in search of satisfactory answers.

The answer is more often than not attributable to inertia, or incompetence, or worse.

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