It is common practice, before the budget for the following year is announced, that constituted bodies, trade unions, NGOs, political parties, and other interested groups put forward their proposals to the government of how the economy should be moulded and shaped in the next 12 months.
This can be a useful and productive exercise, if used judiciously.
I strongly believe that time has come to draw a longer and different socio-economic plan, at minimum it should be devised on five years. This should be agreed upon between all stake holders and only subject to ad-hoc changes when emergencies arise.
For the most obvious reasons, the government cannot accept all monetary proposals put forward by the esteemed bodies but it would be wise for the authorities to accept proposals which are common amongst all the social partners and are of great benefit for the common good. One proposal that has the support of all is that the COLA should not be taxed, thus the employees will have more spending power in their hands.
On the other hand, the government should discard all proposals which obstruct in any way healthy and fair competition. In business, market forces play an important role and should not impose a ceiling arbitrarily in any sector. The government should only set quality benchmarks and very high standards in all sectors of the economy. Those who have the money and want to invest should not be discouraged by moratoriums. We have been there in the 80s and those promoting such proposals must have forgotten what this has brought about to the business community when quotas used to be the order of the day.
Castille's current incumbents claim that they are hands on. Indeed, there is nothing worse than bad-mannered, hard-headed politicians who try to make believe they have the solution to everything when in fact clearly, they do not have it.
There are many instances which evidently show this.
We still suffer from electricity outages in various localities notwithstanding the scattered generators in our streets and the imported €37 million temporary power station diesel run plant.
Unfortunately, various popular bays this summer were declared not suitable for swimming due to sewage leakages.
The most obvious is that accountability has vanished from the political vocabulary of the authorities. This is worrying to the extent that we hear too many alleged cases of corruption putting Malta further in bad light on the international scene. To make matters, worse no one shoulders political responsibility.
The environment must take centre stage in the coming budget. Lip service and cheap publicity stunts will not sway people's hearts. Bold actions are necessary.
Local councils have been deprived from several responsibilities in our communities and today they have been relegated to do glorified customer-care office duties at best. This must be remedied and local councils should once again become local governments in our communities with a purpose in next year's budget.
The economic plan adopted in 2013 overpopulated our islands with thousands of low skilled third country nationals' workers, putting a strain on roads infrastructure, our health care system, and putting into jeopardy our educational system, amongst other services.
There is a broad national consensus that Malta needs a new economic plan without further delay. Obviously, we must change gradually from low skilled imported labour to more value added imported skilled labour. Value added is key here.
This will combat the following figures.
The number of people who had a part-time job and another full-time job reached 41,745, an increase of 8.7 per cent when compared to the same month in 2023. The number of people who need to have a part-time job in addition to their full-time job is on the increase. Certainly, the quality of life of these thousands must be very modest, to put it mildly.
According to the 2023 Survey on Income and Living Conditions, over 105,000 people in Malta - nearly one in five - were at risk of poverty or social exclusion last year. This includes 88,462 individuals, or 16.6% of the population, living below the at-risk-of-poverty threshold of just €11,364.
Food banks continued to mushroom to support thousands of people in various localities. It is important to have a prosperous GDP outlook, but this does this translate into better quality of life of our citizens. Unfortunately, the distribution of wealth is very warped.
Government can at any time change course for the benefit of all. However, one must keep in mind some of the proposals are sine qua non while others should improve the quality of life of people. We wait and hope it was not a PR exercise.
Gejtu Vella is an Industrial Relations & Human Resources Consultant
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