"Libellus .... de optimo reipublicae statu, deque nova insula Utopia"

(Concerning the highest state of the republic and the new island Utopia)

Thomas More penned his socio-political satire in 'Utopia' in Latin. It was published in 1516 and illustrates a fictional island with its society, religion, social and political habits. Utopia is an ideal place whose inhabitants live in seemingly perfect conditions. And no, in his masterpiece More did not forsee Malta after January 2020. But maybe Robert Abela does.

Robert Abela repeatedly blows his horn that in 'his' Utopia there is full employment with only a few lazy people registering for work. His horn sounds are echoed by One News and obviously PBS. 

And yes, you can see full employment everywhere you look in this fair island. Like the twelve workmen changing a lamp post bulb, the nine digging a hole or a couple of Gozo Channel employees asking you for your ticket so they can slot it into the turnstile for your convenience.

Malta's economy as designed by that corrupt Joseph Muscat was based solely on construction and the importation of tens of thousands of third world nationals who can be seen daily driving motor scooters, waiting on people in bars and restaurants and driving taxis. In eleven years the only foreign investments were Vitals, Steward Healthcare and the American University of Malta. Oh, and there was Pilatus Bank in the financial sector. We all know what were the outcomes. The Labour vision of a new and robust economy managed to uglify Malta in just a decade, with rabbit hole appartments, daily traffic conjestions, dust and noise pollution. There also were attempts like the much publicized and trumpted 'blockchain island' which fell flat. But the booming economy does not make the more than 100,000 persons in the risk of poverty feel any better, or feed the more than 1,000 a day to turn to soup kitchens to have a daily meal.

When one speaks of pollution one has to bear in mind that we are seeing 10 new cars on our roads every day, roads that are chocked every hour of every day leading to frustration, road rage and loss of thousands of work hours. The government's only solution is the widening of roads eating away fertile agriculture land and still leading to various bottlenecks around the whole country. Various government officials gave advice on how to deal with the problem, like going late for work and driving at night. None helped.

Robert Abela and Clayton Bartolo, the Man United supporter and minister for tourism, kept on bragging about the number of tourists coming to Malta. But the government's propaganda on new tourists arrival 'records' is just puffery. There is no strategy and no direction. While last year  numbers hit a record of more than 3 million of arrivals, the average stay and spending decreased drastically over 2019 (the last pandemic record year). NSO figures show that while in 2019 every tourist spent €800, the average for 2023 went down to €782. Even stays per tourist decreased from 6.9 nights in 2019 to 5.9 nights in 2023. Yet this is not reported by One or TVM, becuase they rather believe Robert's utopia. And they do include the thousands of youths who flock to the island for binge drinking and weed smoking.

Seeing the squandering of hundreds of thousands of euro being paid to ministers'consultants and persons of trust, many of them former One journalists, turncoats and party members the last one was Amanda Muscat's consultancy, and the amount spent by government on marketing and media activities, one would think that we are living in a country with a healthy financial situation. Reality is unfortunately quite different. The national debt exploded since 2013 and now stands at more than €11 billion, twice of what it was between 1964 and 2012. It is expected to rise to €13 billion in the next couple of years. To finance his extravagances the government is borrowing something like €3 million every single day and the interest of the national debt is €4 million every week. No wonder Rosianne Cutajar told her friend Yorgen Fenech that "I don't care, everyone is pigging out."

But the biggest deception that Robert Abela is living, and is desperately trying to put across, concerns the rule of law. When he met EU Commissioner for Justice Didier Reynders one year ago, the prime minister declared with a straight face that Malta, after having 'some difficulties,' has learnt its lessons about good governance and now everything is just fine. Robert Abela never mentioned the lack of action by the Attorney General and the Commissioner of Police when it comes to anything to do with corrupt politicians and their buddies. And the prime minister persists in undermining justice, every now and then attacking the judiciary and cultivate impunity.

Meanwhile Robert Abela keeps duping his faithful. They clap and they sing and they cheer. "Għax għandna lil Robert magħna ...."

Joe Azzopardi

Joe Azzopardi is a former official at the ministries of the environment, justice and home affairs and foreign affairs.