The major difference between the PL and the PN is that while Labour has learnt from its past mistakes – in many instances at its own expense – the PN is not only proving to be incorrigible but it also adamantly persists in error, particularly when it comes to stepping up its patently arrogant streak
That Austin Gatt has proved to be the PL’s not so secret weapon has been proved all along over the years. At the same time that the local media were awash with the way a courageous student told him where to get off on campus for having botched the Arriva operation from the word go, I came across at least three Nationalist families who made it clear to me during home visits that there is no way that they will vote PN again: Mainly as a result of the arrogance people of Austin’s ilk have been showing towards the ordinary man in the street.
No matter how much certain diplomats might have found him decisive – as I do too, even though most of his decisions tend to be seriously and strategically flawed – his political insensitivity is doing the PN far more harm than one can ever envisage.
Although I will not attribute ulterior motives to such behaviour – as some are inclined to do – since Austin is known to have often been abrasive even with party rank and file since his days as PN General Secretary, this insensitivity is irking many of today’s discerning voters.
The chickens are coming home to roost for Austin and his coterie not only regarding Arriva but also regarding such would be mega projects like SmartCity.
Initially they blamed the delays on the Dubai financial meltdown (which at that stage was understandable) but things started turning awry when they more recently blamed it on the Libyan crisis (at a time when Libyan involvement was never on the cards).
Recently SmartCity made the headlines for the wrong reasons, when major local contractors filed a warrant of prohibitory injunction against SmartCity to the tune of €1.8m by claiming that it owed them money for works they were reported to have been contracted to do. I will not go into the merits of this case and let things sort themselves out in the Law Courts. Now Gatt is blaming his own government. Or to be more precise a number of parastatal corporations, agencies and/or authorities as if these were not an extended arm of government itself.
What bothers me most as a former Shadow Minister for ICT is that in spite of the hype of mega jobs announced at the time of the 2008 elections, we have now got to the stage where although SmartCity office buildings might be on target, one surely cannot say the same for their job creation targets and objectives. Any excuses brought forward will prove to be superfluous.
When the agreement was signed four years ago, the accord did not only speak of buildings and office blocks but also of jobs. So much so that we had a whole debate as to what types of jobs would be created since government was then talking in terms of thousands. I often queried whether they would be ICT- or leisure industry-related as well as what really constitutes an ICT job, particularly if pure back office and administrative work might also be involved.
By the time of writing it is crystal clear that although the company is only contractually bound to create some 5,600 jobs by the time the project is finished, the study had projected that the ICT village was meant to generate 2,874 direct jobs in its operational phase by 2011.
The vast majority of jobs should have also been in IT services.
The study commissioned by government had as reported by a leading journalist elsewhere calculated the multiplier effect of SmartCity on the rest of the economy, which would have seen the number of new jobs created increase to 4,174 by this year.
No wonder that while a company spokesman had claimed that SmartCity had registered a 38% occupancy rate he could not quantify the number of people employed by businesses that set up shop in the first office block.
What is for sure is that judging by the companies which have committed themselves to open offices at SmartCity we are nowhere near as to seeing the long promised 2,800 new jobs being created.
According to calculations made in the pre-electoral period of 2008, SmartCity should have contributed €179m in value added to the Maltese economy this year.
Bearing in mind Austin Gatt’s penchant for various public statements and pronouncements, his reaction to this sad saga says much about the egg on his face than on the project itself. And obviously, about that of the usual suspects who hang around him.
To be fair to Minister Gatt, arrogance is not his exclusive domain within government’s ranks.
This can be traced to most of the attitudes adopted by various Cabinet members including the PM himself.
Dr Gonzi’s recent curt and snide remark that one simply cannot please everybody in today’s realities, jarred when matched with the unilateral manner in which Gonzi and his ministers gave themselves hefty salary increases when many families could hardly make ends meet and when in the PM’s own words we were then on the eve of a new economic downturn.
It also contrasts with the way the selected few seem to be getting the biggest slices of the economic cake, much to the frustration and dismay of long-standing supporters of the Nationalist Party who have been left empty handed while a handful of families continue to strike it rich.
The PN government’s arrogance was also evident in the House last week during the debate on the government’s further commitment for the Greek bailout.
One would have understood such an attitude had the Opposition chosen not to play ball, by opting to be populist or obstructionist. But as Joseph Muscat clearly explained in the presence of the Greek Ambassador who sat throughout the parliamentary sitting in the Strangers’ Gallery, the Opposition did not want to sacrifice Malta’s reputation in shouldering its responsibility in the EU. On the contrary, it wanted Malta to remain in the eurozone and acknowledged the dangers to its economy if the eurozone failed.
Just because Muscat warned that while the Opposition supported the government commitments on this issue, no further commitments should be made without discussion with the Opposition, all hell broke loose on the government benches. The PN media dismissively claimed that the PL approved the resolution cautiously. Not true. We did not qualify our position. The least that we could have expected was to be consulted prior to the debate, rather than coming to learn of government’s U-turn on the collateral issue from the media prior to the debate itself.
Apart from the fact that as claimed by the Opposition, government had committed itself to a solution that few international economists thought would succeed, and that according to Muscat Malta could not give blind commitments but had to negotiate according to the economic and financial circumstances prevailing at the time, Minister Fenech had the cheek to state in his winding up speech that Muscat had learned nothing from the crisis simply because of his proposal to cut electricity bills which according to him over-simplistically meant that this would push up the national debt.
The ’87 Labour government might have lost power because it went way beyond its sell by date; while in ’98, dysfunctionality can easily explain a similar fate. But this time round we seem to be faced by a government where life support alone might not suffice to see it through.
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Leo Brincat is the Shadow Minister for the Environment, Sustainable Development & Climate Change