“Infrastructure is Malta’s Achilles’ heel”, Joseph Muscat told a recent gathering of investors. Most of the audience was foreign, which is why Muscat must have felt sufficiently at ease to be frank and honest. No votes to be lost here.
Achilles’ heel. Who would have thought it? My recollection of Greek mythology is rather hazy these days – surrounded as we all are by contemporary Maltese versions of the same genre. If I remember correctly, however, the baby Achilles was dipped by his mother in the waters of the River Styx, said to have magical powers that would make him invulnerable. Alas, she held him by his heel, which did not acquire the benefit of the magic water that the rest of him did. The consequence was that Achilles was invincible but was killed by an arrow in the one part of his body that had stayed dry.
Our Achilles’ heel
Achilles’ mother did not have four years to mull over which part of her son she had missed out on from wetting. That’s the length of time Muscat has been in office and that’s the length of time he has sat pretty and done precious little: not just in the delivery part but also in the preliminary conception, planning and design.
It did not cross Muscat’s mind, as he flogged visas and passports to foreign buyers, that this would increase the demand not only on housing but also on just about any other service a growing and complex economy needs to function. And that includes the services you can mainly – or only – expect a public authority to provide. Anyone would know what we’re talking about here: transport, education, health, energy, water – in other words, all those sectors where all the Government has done in the last four years is to sell public assets.
A finger-crossing policy
Labour scoffed at the promise made in the last Nationalist election manifesto for a mass transit system. Yes, it will involve considerable capital outlay. Yes, it will be some time before there is a return on the investment. But that’s not atypical of public infrastructure. It is Labour’s attitude that is surprising and shocking: it is so into instant gratification and the quick buck that it is unable to think of anything beyond the next general election.
As roads become more congested with more cars and work going on, the best the Government can hope for is a “voluntary change of culture”, as the responsible Minister put it, a Damascene moment when we car-users voluntarily decide to ditch the car, self-immolate by giving up our driving licences and fully embrace ‘alternatives’ that not only do not exist but, thanks to the Government’s unimaginative planning, will not exist – at least for the foreseeable future.
For a government that is as money-minded as the one we have, it’s surprising that – unless the Prime Minister is making some unscripted remarks to foreigners – it is failing to notice the economic impact of time being wasted due to traffic jams. And that’s not to mention other negative consequences such as the deteriorating air quality. You would expect the Party so unnecessarily concerned about the ‘cancer factory’ that is the power station would be thinking hard of the health consequences of pollution. Now, instead, it just hopes that others will do the right thing for it.
Energy investment
Speaking of which, what about Labour’s investment in the energy sector? The much vaunted cuts to energy costs are really down to two things: the interconnector to Italy which was planned and funded by the last Nationalist administration and the huge fall in the international price of oil. Labour is due no credit for either.
Talk of a new power station is being kept so discreet that it makes you wonder whether it’s having more of an impact on the country’s public finances than on the electricity sector. And then, of course, there’s the tanker in the middle of Marsaxlokk Bay about which the Government has only now started to do something by expressing the intention to invest in a gas pipeline in five years’ time. Talk about putting the cart before the horse.
Meanwhile, power cuts are still happening. With an increasing population, hotter summers and more airconditioning units, it is obvious that demand for electricity will increase – but not to the Government, it would seem.
Public investment and quality of life
This should recall the fuss the government made some months ago about its budgetary surplus. More than ever, it is now obvious how that was achieved: by slashing capital expenditure. A surplus ‘eluded’ previous governments not because of their profligacy but because they saw public investment as fundamental to people’s quality of life – certainly not a waste of money, as Labour’s thinking has been so far.
There seems to be some hope. After Muscat’s Achilles’ heel comment, the Government machine seems to have finally spluttered into action. The Finance Minister said that a growing economy with poor infrastructure gives diminishing returns and his colleagues in the cabinet have hopefully taken note. With the sense of haste that has taken over them after four wasted years, it’s fingers crossed that they do things properly.