Come Budget Day the loudest and most persistent banging on tables by the government side will be when the minister announces that the COLA increase as from 1 January will be €12.81 per week.

We have known this for many days, for today the Budget measures are drip-fed in advance. Can’t see why then they hold Budget Day at all and erect stages for mass presentations.

The accepted wisdom is that COLA is something set in stone and its conclusion is infallible. It cannot be negotiated. Nor changed.

It’s a tripartite agreement reached by the government, the unions and the employer associations, reached after a long process over the years. It has worked for many years but it has never been this high.

But it’s one thing when the COLA increase was of, say, €8 a week and the employers could afford it. This year’s COLA is of a different category altogether.

The people in employment will welcome it. So will the pensioners. So will the people in government employment. But the self-employed will have to find the increase through their own means. That usually means they will pass it on to their customers. The hardest hit will be the employers. It is easy to foresee companies shutting up and people losing their jobs.

The employer associations saw this coming and tried to change matters but were on the whole unsuccessful. This COLA increase may well break down the private sector.

In theory the increase is more than justified. Actually the money we will get as from 1 January is money we have already forked out. The COLA increase is just a repayment.

But it’s huge however you look at it. The government, as the largest employer, will be the one forking out the most money but it’s the government. It can always increase the deficit and borrow more, considering the public debt increased by so much since it’s been in government.

That problem goes back a long way, under different administrations and was allowed to grow and fester. Take Gozo, for example, where the private sector is never allowed to grow as with every election people are resigning their private employment and getting employment in the public sector. There have been factories set up and then have to close unless they employed third country nationals.

The main problem is how to tackle the debt problem and keep out of another bout of Excessive Deficit Procedure come next Spring. And next how to tackle inflation, considering this COLA increase has been caused in part by inflation.

The government then has a host of secondary but important issues it has to deal with, beginning with Air Malta and its successor. (And, while we’re about it, the airport and its dismal results, even if it’s privatised).

Above all, the government has to face an ever-growing crisis of rule of law issues and protecting its cronies while ensuring they continue to enjoy the outrageous packages it’s given them.

So when the government side starts banging their desks at the announcement of the COLA increase they might give a thought to the owners and employers who will have to find out where the hell they’re going to get the money to pay their employees. That’s the least expected from them, given this government’s supposedly pro-business stance.

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