Which side are you on?

The label "partisan" is too easily bandied about in this country. Whenever someone criticises almost anything, or presents factual data on current issues, which do not give a rosy outlook, somebody else will try to water down the impact of what they say by branding the criticism as partisan.

A report in the papers on Thursday amused me because, on the one hand we had Arthur Muscat, president of the Malta Employers Association, slagging off one of our foremost economists for being "partisan" because he recently stated that "the country is facing probably the worst recession in recent decades" ("worst" turned out to be a misquote anyway; more later).

On the other hand, and in sharp contrast, Gejtu Vella, the Union Haddiema Maghqudin's general secretary, said: "It is high time we stop listening to what politicians have to say and instead start listening more to what the economists have to say."

Now why do I find the latter statement more convincing?

Rather than finding Professor Edward Scicluna's remarks partisan, Mr Vella echoed his findings, saying that the UHM has long been stressing the need to address the state of the economy, which was far from healthy.

Now I am sure that instances do occur when arguments are put forward, or statements made, which are coloured by political allegiance - mainly that occurs in the many columns written by politicians or people with known political allegiances - but we cannot dismiss every argument that is critical of government or the current situation, just by saying that the person presenting it has his/her own agenda and is being partisan, especially when the people concerned are highly respected professionals.

If Mr Muscat had presented a counter argument to show that Professor Scicluna's statements were ill-founded, he might have had a point. But he didn't. He described Professor Scicluna as a "valued qualified economist", which rather contradicts the "partisan" (strong unreasoning supporter of a party) slur, and said that our employment situation was not as bad as in other European states, which is true, and of course employment plays an important role in the economy, but a recession involves other factors, and from what I have read Professor Scicluna was giving a holistic picture of the economy.

The man himself responded on The Independent's back page on Friday. He rightly objected to the label and saw it as a form of gagging. Maybe that is why some people shy away from 'telling it like it is'. Some people do worry about being labelled partisan and few have the courage of their convictions.

Professor Scicluna reaffirmed that the economy is currently going through one of the longest, though not its deepest (meaning not its worst) recession since World War II, adding that the comment is based on fact and not his opinion.

He explained that economists declare technically that an economy is in recession when it experiences two consecutive quarters of contraction in its output. According to the NSO, since 2000 Malta saw a contraction in the last quarter followed by another in the first quarter of the following year.

The phenomenon was repeated in 2001, 2002 and 2003. In 2004 no growth was registered in the last quarter, followed by another fall in the first quarter of this year, he pointed out. "Unfortunately we are not yet out of recession... and we should certainly do something about it," he said.

Professor Scicluna said that he gave "a very positive assessment of what I think are the factors contributing to this malaise, and recommendations as to what should be done about it" in the interview carried in The Malta Financial & Business Times, a few weeks ago.

Coming back to the partisan label, although a leading industrialist I spoke to had absolutely no doubt in Professor Scicluna's integrity, one of the media people I shared my thoughts with seemed to think that the label did fit, so I was quite amused to find the following in an article, which appeared in The Malta Business Weekly of April 22-28, 1999, while doing a spot of digging.

Headlined 'Malta Labour Party in protest against the HSBC take-over of the government's shares in Mid-Med Bank', none other than the person he is now meant to be 'siding with' was then giving the professor a right slagging off.

"Dr Sant slammed the chairman of the Malta Financial Services Centre, Professor Edward Scicluna, for comments he made during a press conference on Tuesday.

" 'It is absolutely not acceptable for anybody to tell us not to speak up against this deal which is not in Malta's national interest and therefore had to be condemned,' Dr Sant said."

He recounted how Professor Scicluna had stated that the criticism being levelled by the MLP against the deal could annoy HSBC and create problems in the offshore financial sector in our country.

"I strongly rebuff Professor Scicluna's comments," Dr Sant said. "He should not even have made them in the first place."

Well he was probably making partisan comments!

Konfoffa

Last month this column was headed 'Who will be the next Ombudsman?' I never got an official answer to my question, but after a series of persistent calls I managed to get, if not quite a response, a call back on Friday.

The answer is we don't know! Or perhaps the politicians know, but they are not letting on. In an interview with the outgoing Ombudsman, carried in today's paper, Joseph Sammut talks about his efforts to ensure procedures practised by other EU countries in appointing an Ombudsman were followed. He got nowhere.

He would also have liked a smooth, transitional handover, which would have not only made things easier for the new incumbent, but also the staff in the Ombudsman's Office, which from next week will be a headless institution.

When I asked the Speaker whether there had been a call for applications, he replied in the negative. What happens, as I understand it, is both sides of the House give in their bids of whom they think is suitable and, if they both agree, bob's your uncle, we shall have a new Ombudsman.

Apparently that is how it should be done according to the Constitution.

Well it sounds like a konfoffa to me. I can't think of the English translation. It is not quite a conspiracy, but rather collusion, where the two sides come to an agreement to ensure they are both not challenged by anyone other then each other.

As for transparency, we have no idea on what basis or criteria are being used to establish who would make a suitable Ombudsman.

We can speculate that ideally both sides of the House would like someone with not too much energy or passion, and someone who would not mind too much if his/her reports were left to gather dust.

I hope that this speculation is proved wrong, because it would be such a shame if the institution that has done so much to give the ordinary citizen a voice loses sight of its sense of justice.

I asked whether there was a shortlist? But all I was told was that both sides of the House are in discussion on the issue, and that is all they were prepared to say. I also spoke to the leader of the Opposition, Dr Alfred Sant, the great transparency promoter, and he gave me the exact answers as the Speaker.

Well there is no rush. The present incumbent only leaves at the end of this week and he has clearly indicated that he will not stay on.