Government ministries are blatantly flaunting the fact that their public-salaried officials will be holding meetings with the general public at Labour Party clubs all over the islands.
Any form of pretence is now over. With the erasing of these previously un-crossable lines, there is simply no distinction between party and government anymore. It has been become an institutional reality, that Labour Party Clubs are extensions of Ministries. This effectively rules out any form of Ministerial communication with those members of the public, whatever their political allegiance may be, who are simply not comfortable with attending partisan political clubs.
This step is typical of the way Labour in government has operated, and unfortunately bodes even worse for the future.
We have seen it with the Australia Hall saga. We have seen it with the forced resignations of the Permanent Secretaries. We have seen it with the usurpation of the power vested in independent regulatory bodies like the Malta Communications Authority. We have seen it with the appointment of a Minister’s wife as a business envoy in China, or the Prime Minister’s friend, his wife’s business partner, as an envoy in New York.
It is the politicisation of everything. Taghna Lkoll has been rudely exposed as pure snatch-and-grab partisan politics.
One year on, the new face of Labour has been unmasked as rising unemployment, falling standards, passports up for sale, and plum jobs and hand-outs for the chosen few. Some Labour MPs, cashing in on their time in government, have managed to get their hands on multiple sources of public income, getting themselves put on the payroll as consultants, advisers, or chairpersons, over and above their monthly onoraria as Members of Parliament.
At the same time, Labour’s approach to new investment has been as flawed as its handling of Malta’s citizenship sale. After initially looking into the possibility of running Malta’s public transport system, Scottish operator McGill’s abruptly pulled out, declaring that they have negotiated with governments all over Europe, but that the Maltese government’s way of doing things is just not on.
Joseph Muscat is being held hostage by his secret pre-electoral promises and commitments and by his policy of constant appeasement and rewarding of his inner circle. While companies are laying off workers, and investors are backing away, he has placed an additional 1,000 people on the public payroll. And yet… unemployment continues to rise.
With the myths of Taghna Lkoll and meritocracy becoming tragic jokes, Labour have now come up with their new mantra of ‘A government that listens’. This is presumably the brainchild of the foreign media-consultant who has recently been installed at Castile – another person on our payroll, the amount of whose salary Labour are transparently avoiding to divulge.
Cheap slogans have replaced good governance. Tired billboards will not hide the fact that this has become a government which only listens to the few, who attend their PL kazini meetings, and which ultimately acts in the interests of even fewer.
This last year has seen the introduction of a palpable distinction between Joseph Muscat’s close company and companies, and those families who I meet every day who are worried about their future, especially with the sceptre of unemployment, and youth unemployment in particular, raising their ugly heads.
We have seen a plummeting of standards – from statesmen to salesmen, from Taghna Lkoll to Taghhom biss, from billboard posing to government-paid board positions… from meritocracy to merito-crazy!
It is systematic. We should be shocked, but perhaps the sheer volume of all these cases means that our natural reaction has been dulled. It is almost as if we have learnt to expect it. It has been left up to us, the Nationalist Party, to once again be the voice of those people who this government steadfastly ignores. This party is all about for the people and not from the people. We will continue to stand firm in your interests.
Roberta Metsola is a Nationalist MEP and a candidate in the forthcoming European parliamentary elections
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