A successful investment?

The article (August 13) by the Minister of Health, Louis Deguara, makes interesting reading. It is yet another in a long list written by politicians and quasi-politicians trying to convince people why it is not inappropriate to spend so much on Dar Malta in Brussels, a property bought by our money but which only a few of us will be lucky enough to see from the outside one day, let alone enter and sit down in!

But Dr Deguara's article raises various questions which should not go unanswered.

First of all, Dr Deguara believes that the majority of Maltese and Gozitans own their own homes. Well, some own, some do not. To be precise, many part-own, so to speak, along with the commercial bank which has given the owners the loan to buy that property. Even in legal papers, the owner is described as a co-owner, along with the bank. And Dr Deguara would do well to consider how tough it is, nowadays, to be an owner of a modest dwelling, what with high prices and high mortgages.

Far from "monthly instalments easily bearable", people feel the bite of such instalments, what with prices going sky-high and wages normally remaining the same. But perhaps Dr Deguara is alien to this kind of thing.

Dr Deguara then goes on to compare the need of buying Dar Malta in the middle of Brussels. As against mere renting. I don't think that anyone is disputing the need to buy a property in Brussels.

The dispute arises in what kind of building tiny, modest and yes, poor-to-almost-bankrupt Malta is buying! And compared to the GDP that the country has (or does not have). The point under discussion is not the buying of a property but how much money has been budgeted for that property - that, dear minister, is the issue!

That is like comparing a family where the parents are telling their children that they have no money for their education and health, then they go off and buy a Jaguar instead of a modest car! You would say that the Jaguar was an investment - but could the family afford that investment, when the little money that was available was needed in cash, here and now?

In another paragraph, Dr Deguara claims that usually a person who works hard in his/her first years ends up with a success story and the lack of such success is only due to carelessness in life. But I say, is that so?

Is that really the case? Or is it rather a case where the few success stories in the country are taking place because the people involved either know how to move about or else they know people who help them to move about!

Dr Deguara speaks about the success story of Malta House in London. I am no economist, no real estate agent, yet, I am an avid reader, and one such economist recently claimed that, indeed, if the price for Malta House has gone up by Lm2 million, then it was hardly a successful investment.

The concluding paragraph also demands a question: Did the Prime Minister's monthly press conference really subdue the tide of criticism which is being brought about due to the low morale that the Maltese people have been led to find themselves in?