Last week we reported the conclusions of this year’s Global Competitiveness Report which not only saw Malta being confirmed in the 47th place as it had done the previous year but also once again the same faultlines being repeated.

It is clear that as long as nothing strategic is done about these faultlines, Malta will remain in the same placing, with perhaps a move upwards of one position or two or downwards, mostly depending on the number of countries being considered.

As was very clear from the graphics used in last week’s report, which echoed the graphics used in the past years, the biggest problematic factor for doing business in Malta, is, and has always been, ‘inefficient government bureaucracy’.

There are probably many other studies and analyses that confirm the difficulties faced by those who intend opening up in Malta.

To say that it is much worse in other countries does not really address the issue. Being better than people who have ended up at the bottom of the euro heap because they culpably let things slide and deteriorate is no consolation.

At the other end of the scale there are also countries where to get a development permit does not mean a delay of some years, where to get a loan from a bank does not mean one has to put up all one’s property and probably that of one’s family, and then wait some. In fact, ‘access to financing’ is the second item among the ‘problematic factors for doing business’ in this report.

Successive governments have identified this problem and have repeatedly committed themselves to tackling the red tape jungle.

The previous PN administrations stated this was one of their targets. A Management Efficiency Unit was set up, it held courses, introduced computers and tried to simplify procedures. Let the end users – the public at large and the Maltese business community in particular – say whether there has been any significant improvement in the government machine. It would seem not.

The new Labour administration has also declared tackling red tape is one of its priorities and it has even dedicated a parliamentary secretary, or to give Dr Michael Farrugia his full title, ‘Parliamentary Secretary for Planning and Simplification of Administrative Processes in the Office of the Prime Minister’.

One may argue these are still early days and the new administration is only six months into its term. But time passes quickly and so endemic is bureaucratic delay in the fibre of government processes that unless an early start is made and unless axes and bulldozers are brought in, Dr Farrugia and his administration may well find themselves at the end of this legislature without there being any real change in the situation down at grass roots level.

Looking back at the failures of the past PN administrations leads one to tentatively identify some of the reasons why no real progress was registered.

For all the talk about one-stop shops where a start-up could get all permits in one place instead of having to go round so many offices, this was never really followed through.

For all the talk that was made that bringing in computers would simplify the processing of files in government offices, there is still a huge bulk of government work that is still done manually and on paper.

Adding local councils to the scene has brought in yet another layer, or level, of government. While this was welcome on the whole as it brought government nearer to citizens (not that they were ever far, at all) it also added yet another level to government bureaucracy. This was further compounded when the previous government did create the local councils but then did not give them the proper tools to do the job assigned to them.

The previous administrations tried hard to shake up the government machine through the creation of permanent secretaries which, in the words of the government of the time, could be people brought in from outside, possibly private enterprise, to bring in a whiff of private enterprise élan to the government sector. Instead, the government machine politely and solidly rejected this innovation just as a body rejects a transplant that is not up to it. Only one Perm Sec was brought in from outside and he soon came to grief. Instead the ranks of Perm Secs became yet another layer of the civil service ladder and people at that level engaged in a musical chairs exercise every so often.  There was no noticeable improvement.

In the first six months of its term, this administration removed at one go almost all Perm Secs of the past legislature, and introduced a new breed, many of whom were appointed for partisan merits. There has also been a wholesale intake of party supporters at all levels.

These are still early days. It may even be that the new people brought in will at last get the huge government machine to function. Or it may go the way of its predecessors. The ultimate judge is, as always, the end-user, the citizen.