We have reason to believe that when certain governments occasionally make proposals to the Maltese authorities which can be somewhat unpalatable to the electorate at large, rather than standing up and declaring themselves in favour or against certain specific measures, government senior officials are known to chicken out by claiming that they are unlikely to pursue the matter further due to likely resistance from the MLP opposition.
Thus blaming it on the opposition rather than taking a firm stand.
This shows how weak this government happens to be and how reluctant it is to take a firm decision on key issues.
This applies particularly to the areas of foreign affairs and security-related matters.
Austin caught napping
When commenting on the MLP’s vision statement on ICT, the Investment, Industry, Investments and Information Technology Ministry lamented that the MLP did not even have the decency to mention the SmartCity project once.
This shows that this Ministry was so eager to rush into print that it did not even bother to do its homework right.
Page 7 of the English version of the document as available on the MLP website states categorically that:
“Government (i.e. a Labour government) will continue to provide the necessary leverage to help the eventual set-up of the smartcity@malta concept.”
Could we have been clearer than that?
An apology is solicited from the ministry concerned for having once again misinformed the public.
If it quoted the Maltese version we had made it clear from the start that it was but an executive summary of the full document to make things easier for Maltese-writing journalists and those who prefer to discuss a document in Maltese.
Austin keeps mum
In our vision statement on ICT it is not true that we came out against strategic alliances with major ICT companies.
To do so would have defied logic.
In fact we stated that in order for the government to be an active driver in the ICT industry it needs to enter into vertical strategic alliances with major international entrepreneurs.
What we did add was that these alliances cannot fall under a blanket statement that they will result in the strengthening of the ICT industry but it is extremely important that the government outlines what the tangible strategic advantages are (such as intellectual or capital contribution to the country) and how it plans to achieve them.
Basically our message was simple and direct: yes to strategic alliances but please let us quantify the cost benefit involved.
When my colleague Carmelo Abela MP recently called on the Investment, Industry and IT Minister to table copies of the agreements and commercial arrangements reached with such strategic partners as Microsoft, Cisco, HP and others, not only did the minister refrain from spelling out the details but he did not even bother to present an outline of the agreements reached under the pretext that these documents were of a commercial nature and the government was bound to refrain from publishing them.
A Labour government will ensure that since MITI – the ministry concerned – is completely a government entity, it is duty-bound to resort to full transparency regarding these matters.
Maltese-Russian
commercial relations: untapped potential
When I recently visited Moscow and St Petersburg as part of a Foreign and European Affairs Committee delegation I was struck by the extent of opportunities in the commercial sector that we are missing out on.
Tourism figures are in decline with the Russian authorities claiming that we are adopting a heavy handed approach on the issuing of visas.
Potential in such areas as financial services, information technology, teaching of English, use of Malta as a springboard to North Africa, co-operation at University level, international trading companies form part of the relatively unexplored territory.
It seems that at foreign affairs level this government does not even know where to start when it comes to economic diplomacy.
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Leo Brincat is the Shadow Minister for Foreign Affairs and IT