As we watch history digesting the future, we rely on probabilities rather than certainties. And while one must make due allowance for the unpredictable and the unexpected, there is one certainty that has been standing out with a good measure of consistency during the past year: the PL is moving towards the next election with the wind blowing in its sails.
If the Labour Party were to win, the prize will be no bed of roses. It will have to face a challenge of the first order – that of cleaning the Augean stables, in awful disarray after long years of Nationalist incompetence and maladministration.
This much is known. The economy is weak-kneed and much debilitated. The government’s finances are in disarray, having laboured for years under the yoke of a structural deficit, and burdened by unprecedented debt. The bureaucracy is rudderless and, therefore, aimless. From time to time, the odour of corruption fouls the air.
Daunting challenge
If Malta is to survive, this challenge must be faced. It certainly could not be tackled with any hope of success by the politicians who landed us in the present mess. The electorate has been showing signs that it is steadily coming round to this view, and will opt for change. Labour will have to grin and bear it.
It will have to extemporise and think ahead simultaneously.
It will obviously have to come to grips with runaway spending and start speaking the language of frugality. Apart from cutting the suit according to the available cloth, it will have to move fast and fumigate certain areas where voracious spiders have been steadily bleeding the Exchequer.
It is equally obvious that it will, willy-nilly, be obliged to investigate other areas where the lingering smell of corruption continues to defy the conscience of the electorate.
Foremost objective
The prime challenge, however, is to resuscitate the economy. It must kick-start the economic engine and activate enterprise, which is easier said than done. Political will and confidence are of the essence, but the key is to mobilise all available economic forces and to incentivise them. Above all, the government must be outward looking and willing to move out of the box of orthodoxy.
There are areas open to immediate initiative by both government and private enterprise, jointly or separately. The most obvious is the tourist sector. The proposal to regenerate the entire Grand Harbour area offers promising possibilities and has the potential of attracting foreign investment.
There is a crying need for the redeployment of underemployed or idle labour in the public sector to spruce up the environment, and to give a facelift to a major segment of our national heritage, Valletta included.
Given the necessary encouragement and coordination, the private enterprise sector could be persuaded to explore possibilities of exploiting still further Malta’s potential as a regional hub. After developing a transhipment hub and a financial centre, and making a name as a centre for English-language teaching, there is no reason why Malta could not make more mileage in this sector, particularly in value-added, telecommunications-related activities. MCAST has a role cut out for it in this sector.
The fast-moving information revolution and the emergence of the global village is giving more power to enterprise and is proving to be the harbinger of freedom and liberation from old systems.
Whereas the industrial revolution imposed economies of scale, the new information revolution calls for economies of micro-scale and computer power is continually devolving into the hands and onto the laps of individuals with imagination and initiative. The rapid advance of computer and other technology is dispersing rather than centralising computer efficiency by a factor of thousands.
Scope for preparation
Malta’s available resource is in manpower and the new revolution offers scope for preparation that will make it possible for our economy to adjust to the wave of the future.
It is in this context that Malta’s role as a regional hub is to be visualised. It is also in this context that the substantial commitments made to upgrade and strengthen our infrastructure, and to develop the education sector, must be vigorously sustained.
In this modern age, real power and added value are not in things but in thoughts.
This takes us beyond the time-honoured dictum that knowledge is power. In today’s and in tomorrow’s world, knowledge is the source of added power. Old technologies favoured control while new technologies favour freedom. The new source of wealth of nations is the freedom of creative and enterprising individuals who control information technology, move funds between capital markets or send data rushing down fibre optic cables, or bouncing off satellites at the speed of sound.
This change is not exclusive to a few industrialised countries. The entire world will have access to and will be able to give momentum to the movement for a global economy of individuals and families.
It is high time for the Maltese electorate to be administered by a go-getting government intent on securing for it a place in the sun. This calls for a set of politicians with clout, acting as movers and shakers, with sufficient grit to get rid of dead wood and the political will to administer a blood transfusion to the local bureaucracy.
Will the electorate rise to the occasion? Time will tell.
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