Speaking last Sunday Bernard Grech announced that PN has debts amounting to €32 million.

And Malta’s total public debt stood at €8.2 billion as at last November, up €3 billion over the past two years according to a National Statistics Office statement issued on Christmas Eve. Problem for Clyde Caruana, Minister of Finance in the Robert Abela Cabinet.

Two men, same problem. How do they sleep at night?

Let’s take them separately.

Grech’s announcement came like lightning in a blue sky, in the middle of a wide-ranging speech on his reasons why the party suffered such a crashing defeat in the general election and why he still insists he must be the party leader.

The bit about the party’s debt was left uncontextualised on Sunday and in later interviews throughout the week. He said the party does not have the liquidity to fight the European Parliament and the local councils elections in two years’ time – very strange considering the party has just fought a general election.

Many people thought the party had sold off some of its clubs but now it seems that this was rather limited and anyway did not reduce the deficit.

One hopes that the party gets proper professional guidance to quantify the debt and stem the haemorrhage. I suspect that the party’s real hole derives from its media, but then I expect this to be confirmed by the professionals.

The party’s media is the Cindirella of Maltese media. Ever since in-Nazzjon began on 1 January 1970 it was always the fourth, sometimes the fifth, of Maltese papers. Ditto the broadcasting media. Report after report by the Broadcasting Authority puts Net in the fourth place.

This is unfair on the employees and unfair on the party as well. But the party’s media are unsustainable. And costing the owner, the party, to lose good money over bad.

When the party lost in 2013 most of the employees were owed money and only got their dues after a long time. Still, now, the media is one of the causes of the party’s deficit, according to Dr Grech himself.

He warned of difficult decisions that need to be taken. There is no need for a leadership campaign to do this exercise: they should have been taken long ago. I am informed they tried and uncovered scams that I am sure can’t be found at PBS. But not much was done.

The basic mistake is for this station to model itself on PBS when it should aim more at stations like Xejk, Smash or Living and tailor its expenditure to its real revenue. Operating on a shoestring.

Now as to Clyde Caruana. Managing the country’s finances is infinitely more complicated than managing a party. And Mr Caruana cannot be blamed for the profligate policies of Joseph Muscat, Robert Abela and Edward Scicluna. But he is man in charge now and the country expects him to deliver in line with the electoral campaign that promised no new taxes.

Let us delve what risks we are running. Europe has decided to give member states yet another year of grace from the Stability Pact. After this year is over, and if Malta’s financial situation remains the same, we risk going backwards to the Excessive Deficit Procedure we had until 2013 which Labour blamed so much on the PN government.

We know how Labour got out of the EDP – through sales of passports which is now scorned and discredited. Then the Labour administration improved matters in general – through more employment with the government, through more jobs for the boys, through some juicy contracts here, there and everywhere.

But all this is now sending in its bills. There is no easy solution like selling passports. The administration must find adequate jobs and work for the people it has employed. It must cut down drastically on the ministerial direct orders that the biggest Cabinet in history keeps churning out. And it must understand that the short-term-ism of paying millions to Enemalta because of the rising oil prices is just another direct way to an increased deficit.

If I were the Minister for Finance I would not base my predictions on the economy growing by 6% next year, though there may indeed be a bounce due to the end of the Covid restrictions. The country must get back to producing wealth, if indeed it can.

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