An IBM advert run some years ago stated “there is a difference between knowing what needs to be done, and knowing how to do it”. The present administration is providing us with several examples that prove this maxim.

Generating ideas is relatively easy, provided one is endowed with sufficient creativity and knowledge of the issues one is trying to address. Turning these ideas into solutions that work is so much harder. But with such stringent restrictions on scarce resources, getting it right the first time is so important.

Overshooting costs

Practically every project undertaken by the Gonzi administration has been characterised by a massive overshooting of costs. The Mater Dei Hospital project should serve as a management textbook example on How Not To Manage A Project. The burden of financing the excessive cost of this project will plague future generations for many decades.

But perhaps a more tragic consequence is that the government has now very little room to manoeuvre when deciding on how to finance the day-to-day running of this hospital. They shy away from giving details on the simple question as to whether they will safeguard the free National Health Service.

They excel in being “penny wise and pound foolish”. After such massive over-expenditure in building the hospital, they economise by closing polyclinics in our towns and villages earlier than they should, and under-stock the government pharmacy to the detriment of those whose health depends on being provided with the free medicine to which they are entitled.

The roads saga is another such example of not getting it right. We saw expensive, newly laid roads in the Ta’ Qali area being re-engineered because of bad workmanship. The San Lawrenz Road in Gozo took ages to complete and cost much more than was justified. It seems that nothing has been learnt from the it-Telgha t’Alla u Ommu road debacle of some years ago.

The gold standard

The problem with this government is that it has adopted the amount of money spent to deliver goods or services to the community as its gold standard to measure success. This fallacy is amply demonstrated in the field of education.

The recent EU Joint Report on Social Protection and Social Inclusion has once again lambasted the Gonzi administration for failing in the field of education, where 42.1 per cent of our school leavers do not have a basic level of education that makes them employable.

Yet a few weeks ago, Dr Gonzi triumphantly announced how his government is committed to improving education standards by spending over Lm1,000 per child annually to improve education. Dr Gonzi needs to be constantly reminded that what matters in the management of our education system is getting it right, rather than how much we spend to resolve the under-achievement issue that is handicapping our young people.

But it is perhaps expecting too much from an administration that had inherited the “money is no problem” ethos from the previous Fenech Adami era. Ask the thousands of hard-pressed Maltese families whether they now agree with this mentality that still permeates the administration of the country.

This country deserves better. Our families, which have been burdened with the load of such profligacy, know that there is a way out of this sleaze. The Nationalist Party will no doubt continue to declare that, however badly they are managing our national resources, there is no alternative because Labour cannot be trusted.

Labour has used its time in Opposition to hone its plans for the revival of this country. A change is long overdue, and when it comes in a few months’ time, the country will breathe the fresh air that comes when we open ourselves to new ways of dealing with important chall-enges in our lives.

Dr Mangion is deputy leader of the Opposition.