Minister Austin Gatt’s latest jibe against the Opposition Leader has sewage connotations. He may have tried to make people who flock at the Granaries laugh in order to appeal to their basest partisan instincts. But people at Balluta, and I know quite a few, think he is pathetically arrogant and he has given them another reason why they should dump his party from government, the sooner the better. Indeed, what has happened in Dr Gatt’s ministry is helping them make up their mind even better. You see, Dr Gatt has the longest and the most unenviable list of excellent resignations, including one from the WSC itself.
People at Balluta also think Alfred Sant was right in drawing the Prime Minister in the matter. If Dr Gatt is so immersed in incompetence that in spite of all his pretentiousness and bluff he could stupidly allow the Balluta crisis to completely run out of hand then, yes, the Prime Minister should have intervened. Is it not awkward enough that the government has ended up suing itself in court? Would you have ever imagined that in 2007, under Dr Gonzi’s “new style of doing politics,” we have the Health Department, under the patronage of Minister Deguara, calling the shots in court against Minister Austin Gatt’s Water Services Corporation?
I find it really odd that instead of doing their best to resolve administratively the triviality of a drainage leak problem to the satisfaction of all concerned, the two ministers have allowed their subordinates to wage a full blown legal war, dominated by pique, before the Courts of Justice while the Prime Minister just sits down and yawns. Most probably he’s too busy biting the new euros to bother too much about the predicament of the Balluta residents.
But no matter how ludicrous the situation might appear to be, it is indeed symptomatic of a government that has completely lost its bearings. For the government to allow such a petty matter to escalate and hit the headlines is not only beyond me but outright unacceptable. And to make matters worse the government seems overtly unperturbed by the fact that two of its organs have managed to drag themselves to court whereat a very conscientious magistrate is now expected to resolve the issue in lieu of the government itself! Does this government expect the judiciary to run the country?
Poor Dr Gonzi. His ministers cannot get it right these days, can they? They are the source of so much political mayhem on the eve of the general election. From corruption at the ADT to sleaze at the MMA, to the Health Ministry, the Gozo Ministry and the Mosta Local Council. Needless to mention the suspicious circumstances in which a government minister was awarded thousands of liri for expropriated land while ordinary people rot as they wait for their own compensation, as well as the ominous ministerial conflicts of interest orbiting around various expensive government tenders. And now we have to put up with two ministers, one of them with a heavy ego, fighting each other in Court over drainage seepage - Ha, Ha, Ha!
Can you imagine Gordon Brown or Romano Prodi hitting the tabloids trying to pacify two of their cabinet ministers over problems with drainpipes? Well most probably that is what our Lawrence Gonzi is trying to do behind the scenes because these silly, stupid and insipid things happen only with Nationalist cabinet ministers in Malta. Abroad such a sordid situation would have been speedily followed by a spate of resignations.
The Prime Minister has, of course, his own faults. He has repeatedly allowed himself to be overrun by some of his ministers, reinforcing the perception that he hardly has control over his cabinet ministers. Over the last couple of months he has appeared besieged and beleaguered by events and in an attempt to control damage he has contributed towards a deficit of political transparency and accountability, often defending ministers in the face of glaring misconduct and in defiance of public opinion. Middle-classers have already been tried enough by the antics of some of his ministers. But the Prime Minister has definitely irritated the middle classes further with his own sins of omission. A prime minister needs to serve the country and not his cabinet.
He is again late to nip the Balluta saga in the bud and has allowed political scrutiny to seep into what is left of tranquility at his office in Castille. He has been too casual in his attitude towards the problem and has allowed Dr Alfred Sant to question his role in the matter and drag him into the issue. Dr Sant is right in charging the Prime Minister that he could not allow this to continue.
Lethargy has crept into a tired, exhausted and corroded cabinet.
Dr Gulia is the Opposition’s Main Spokesman for the Interior