The spectacular HSBC hold-up ushered a new wave of crime that is overstretching the already demoralised police corps and undermining security and good order in the country.

At this moment in time it pays the government to keep mum and pretend that nothing extraordinary is really happening, a fossilised characteristic of the Tonio Borg way of doing politics. With the prime minister away on European business during the last few days the deputy prime minister was more concerned about reaping the benefits of photo-ops at official ceremonies as acting prime minister than about caring too much on security concerns falling within his remit.

The Home Affairs Ministry can never deny that the crime rate in 1998 was lower than in any one year of this administration and the previous one. Crime statistics are served on the House of Representatives by the Interior Minister himself in response to my parliamentary questions so that this historical fact can never be disproved no matter how much the government tries to downplay the importance of the problem.

In his nine-year long reign at Auberge D’Aragon Dr Borg has simply failed to outmatch Labour’s performance on crime for even just one year. True, petty crime fell during the last two years but the crime rate is still higher than it was during Labour’s last year in office. To make matters worse violent crime has been on the increase and the news of serial hold-ups practically everyday makes proof of statistics unnecessary.

Make no mistake. The Nationalists would now be making a meal of a Labour led government if it was responsible for this critical state of affairs. The matter would have been advertised, under broad front page headlines, as a national crisis in contrast to the poor news value it is actually being attributed by the pro- government print media. No wonder most government ministers have become arrogant.

They enjoy the privilege of media protection whenever they blunder so that they rarely feel the heat under the collar. Unfortunately this over-friendly attitude of the press helps the country to plunge deeper into turmoil as it injects higher doses of inertia in ministerial muscle. Crime is an issue in England because the free press there have no strings attached.

While the Home Affairs Minister was at the Palace posing for photos with the President of the Republic at the Gieh ir-Repubblika ceremony on Republic day, it was business as usual for thieves, robbers, drug addicts and organised gangs as they rampaged their way into houses, shops and offices to push the crime rate upwards by another couple of hundred cases.

It wouldn’t have been a bad idea to award a Gieh ir-Repubblika medal in absentia to the perpetrators of the HSBC hold-up for their cool audacity, a sure sign of the confidence with which criminals operate nowadays and the flippant attitude they have for law and order.

And as the new police recruits threw their hats in the air in jubilation more cocaine, ecstacy and heroin was finding its way into the country through the coastline than was being successfully seized at the airport. With more and more policemen leaving the corps even before their 25th year of service the police corps is fast losing hundreds of years of experience. It will take time before the new inexperienced recruits bridge the gap.

The government would like to persuade people that it is visibly delivering its internal affairs politics with flashy parades in Palace Square, ribbon cutting ceremonies at Police General Headquarters and with fresh recruitments of new officers. At face value all these may appear to be plausible accomplishments.

But go tell this to the thousands of persons who, during the first six months of the current year, were victims of a myriad of crimes against property, from pick-pocketing to hold-ups to snatch and grabs, theft from residences, factories and beaches to theft from vehicles, retail outlets, bars and hotels.

And what about those thousands of victims of arson, bodily harm, damage to property, drugs, fraud, homicide and theft during the past six months. They must be all thankful to the ceremonial mood of the government – Familji fis-sod!

This government cannot beat crime unless its concentrates its resources on two major areas. In the first place it has to put in place an infrastructure that supervises coordination between our police corps and our social and educational institutions. You cannot expect to beat crime by dumping the police alone on the front-line of the war against crime. There are criminals who are criminals from birth but these account for a few. Many become criminals because of social emargination and inaccessibility to educational opportunities. This would involve a closer relationship between the interior and education ministries.

Secondly the police need to focus more on prevention than just on investigation. More effective preventive action will lead to less need for investigation. With the government denying the corps Lm150,000 for three years it is sacrificing security on the altar of the deficit. There should be more investment in prevention, more time consumed on the beat and more versatility.

Finally, on a third front, there must be more than just lip service in the war against the importation of drugs. Today Malta is importing drugs like never before with Paceville a mecca for drug barons and their victims. Consuming drugs has become a way of life with cocaine, the more expensive drug, reaching the middle-class earners.

Only when there will be in place a proper policy on the fight against importation of drugs will there be a real decline in the crime rate.

Dr Gulia is the Opposition’s Shadow Minister on Home Affairs