So, it is nearly over. The real parts of the budget have been digested while the craftily-constructed hype will float around for some time.
What strikes me most is how governments have learned to reword the most deficient of situations into victorious ones, basing their thinking on the assumption that their tribe is willing to be fooled and the opposing one can never bring itself to admit any good in the budget anyway. This is how Malta operates.
The usual media circus started from weeks before. Leakages to the press about what was coming, abounded. One article went so far as to say that government did not have much to show over the past year since it was preparing plans for a great year ahead, only for it to transpire that most projects promised in the past surfaced once again and were heralded as new and God sent. The irony is that if we Maltese are deficient in everything, memory-wise we are not; in fact we have extremely long memories.
To give an example – Budget 2007 promised: ‘Gejjieni Sod ghal uliedna’. At the moment, as I stated last Sunday, each one of ‘uliedna’ carries a tax burden of e11,750, the biggest debt yet to be carried by our children. Budget 2008 promised: ‘Familji fis-Sod’. Do I need to expand? Budget 2009 promised ‘Responsabbiltà, sostenibilità, solidarjetà’. Maybe the Finance Minister is now tripping up on his own slogans and failed to explain how these were achieved and therefore why we should put any faith in his 2010 budget which promises growth, jobs and social cohesion.
It is no surprise therefore that this year, we have had no TV programme on PBS where the Finance Minister and his Opposition counterpart were put on the same panel with representatives of other political parties and unions to give their views on the Budget. Criticism of any sort is being increasingly sidelined.
What can we expect outside the budget? If the usual pattern applies, we can expect perhaps new tariffs to make up for a bankrupt Enemalta; maybe a sewage tariff; higher bus fares; higher gas prices and so many other revenue generating measures that somehow see the light during the year thus respecting the promise of no taxes in the budget itself.
Is this effective management! After a similar exercise one year ago, government got its biggest spanking in Local Council and EU elections. The people sent a message of ‘xebbajtuna’ only a few months after the present government had been returned by the slightest of majorities. This is now showing as the internal cracks increase and more spin is handed out in an attempt to cover them up. In tiny Malta this is a futile exercise because, sooner or later, we all learn what is going on behind the scenes. So turning budgets into propaganda exercises really is a waste of time and money: And this administration is showing itself to be very adept at wasting people’s money.
For the majority of people this budget was a non-event. People are now waiting in fear and trepidation for the new utility tariffs, waiting to see how many more inefficiencies will be slowly piled on their backs. They want to know what they have not yet been told. They wanted to know whether past promises which remain just that.
A new approach is needed. Why not replace the institutionalised budgeting system with one that identifies real obstacles, smoothes out every possible opportunity for growth and comes up with a plan that will enable entrepreneurial dreams to become a reality. We need a budget that throws open the shutters and lets in fresh air.
No government is capable of creating successful businesses. It is the entrepreneurs who are capable of doing so. But entrepreneurs will do so only if their legs are unchained and their minds are left to roam unshackled.
What this country needs is not budgeting in the old sense of the word, but a wide-ranging dialogue between government and people. We need to create our own niche if we are to survive in this ferocious, competitive global economy. Once we decide on our niche, we have to study our competition and see how we can make it the best. Do we have faith in ourselves and our workers? We need an operating plan not a budget. A plan filled with aspirations, primarily directional, and containing numbers that are understood to be targets.
This operating plan is not a budget case in concrete, but an operating plan that changes as conditions change. If we had such a plan we could have faced the recession head on and not have to wait for months for budgetary reaction while the world around us was adapting and changing to combat the international problems.
Besides, we need bold new thinking; bold new ways of doing things and getting things done. We need a smaller, much smaller, government with less bureaucracy and additional costs; one that allows us to think, invent and reinvent. We need to push not pull and drag, and we need, above all, to find ways and means to let our hardworking people enjoy the fruit of their labours.
Then we will put this island on the right track of innovation, reinvention, business and managerial revolution, and growth, jobs and social cohesion will follow. Shall we live to see all this happen?
Dr Josie Muscat
Leader Azzjoni Nazzjonali