Since the dawn of time, politicians have been torn between a wish to say something memorable, and a terror of saying something which is remembered.

They want to sound significant, but they are reluctant to give hostages to fortune. Yet, they persist in making gaffes with unabashed brazenness.

It is one thing for politicians to commit themselves about the future with the risk of being caught in the fullness of time – like those who pronounced that civil aircraft will never fly and that nothing good would ever come of motor cars.

It is another when politicians are bereft temporarily of their political antennae, and make statements which are belied by their own personal record in office.

In such cases, reality pulls the rug from under the perpetrator.

‘A new style of government’

On taking office as prime minister three years ago, Lawrence Gonzi took centre stage and promised “a new style of government”. He was manifestly making a declaration which amounted to a clean cut away from his predecessor in office. He has since been claiming that the economy is moving in the right direction, and that it is progressing steadily ahead whatever the odds.

I would not wish what follows to be interpreted, and much less misconstrued, as ad hominem criticism. But I would submit on factual evidence that Dr Gonzi is being haunted by his own words, and exposed by the official record.

Gonzi opted to carry on governing with the same tired team. The government continued to spend beyond its means and got deeper into debt. He promised to liberate enterprise and to incentivise initiative. Instead, he unleashed an austerity regime, in terms of a convergence programme which he drew up at the behest of the EU. The end result is a stagnating economy unable to take off, the tourist sector in distress, and the rest of the business sector groaning under an unprecedented tax regime.

It must be stressed that, soon after taking over as prime minister, Dr Gonzi assumed personal responsibility for the Ministry of Finance.

World of make-belief

The previous finance minister, John Dalli will be remembered for his foray in the world of make-belief, when he delivered his first budget speech, way back in November l992. On that memorable occasion, he launched a five-year programme to sanitise the economy.

The programme was concise and unambiguous. The deficit was to be reduced to three per cent of GDP. The public sector workforce was to be whittled down to 25 to 30 per cent of the gainfully-employed population. Unemployment was to be maintained at the level of four per cent.

Dalli did the opposite. There was a precipitous increase in tax levels. Public expenditure swallowed up the steep increase in revenue. The government’s voracious appetite necessitated a dramatic increase in public debt. The governor of the Central Bank went out of his way at one stage to lament publicly that we had been consuming beyond our means “for several years”.

More of the same

Post-Dalli, we have been having more of the same, in terms of government overspending, in terms of rising taxation, in terms of peaking unemployment, in terms of rising living costs.

EU statistics indicate that the rate of Malta’s economic growth last year was the lowest registered by all new EU member states, and that things are expected to remain the same this year and the next.

Malta broke another EU record in that it had the highest rate of tax increases, as a percentage of GDP (7.6 per cent).

Malta’s accelerating unemployment rate was the highest registered among all the 25 EU member states last year.

These statistics seem to make mincemeat of the PN commitment to the electorate, encapsulated in the slogan Biex Int tghix Ahjar.

Train derailment

The PN record under Gonzi stands out in dire contrast with his prognostications.

It explains the growing unrest in the party ranks, which spilled out in the press, and in business circles. It has provoked spokesmen of various NGOs to stand up and be counted, and to protest in the streets.

Above all, it explains why Dr Gonzi and his party have lost all three electoral consultations held in Malta since Dr Fenech Adami made may for Gonzi’s succession.

Who can bring the economic train back on track once it has been derailed? Certainly not those who made, and continue to make, hay on the gravy train, while the government was overspending.

This is why the forces of circumstance will impose a change one way or another. If that will not happen – and soon – something will have to give.

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