Leadership qualities?

While talking about the problems facing Enemalta, Investments Minister Austin Gatt said: "On the other hand what we are looking at is the way the government can finance the burden via a loan through short-term financing while hoping that oil prices will go down one day."

Rubbishing suggestions made by AD he said: "What is going to be a recurrent problem cannot be financed through one-off measures. We have to produce long-term solutions."

Isn't short-term financing a "one-off measure"? If, as Dr Gatt said, the government wants to create a "long-term solution" why go for short-term financing? Why is it that when everyone sees the price of oil continuing its upward trend Dr Gatt is "hoping oil prices will go down one day"? Leadership is not about living in hope.

In Dr Gatt's four-page advertisement he asked us to have faith in his leadership and decision-making, when so far he and his colleagues have made a pig's ear of the energy policy for this country. He wants us to hope that oil prices will come down one day, when everything points to an upward trend. He has already put people on the poverty line and made them dependent on EU handouts or charity. He has very successfully managed to take us back in time some 60 years when all we had was "Faith, Hope and Charity".

Dr Gatt's predecessor foolishly wrote off the practice of hedging the nation's oil requirements. About a year ago when oil prices started to hurt he formed a committee. He implied in his four-page advertisement that he is someone who "takes action" as opposed to preaching. I do not see how forming a committee and not having the courage to hedge qualifies him as an "action man". What it certainly shows is that he does not have a plan, and therefore cannot assess the viability of a hedge.

I appeal to Dr Gatt not to give us more garbage about hedging being equivalent to playing with people's money. He is the one who played with people's money by not hedging and leaving the whole nation 100 per cent exposed to the whims of the oil market. He knew how dependent we are on oil for our electricity, water and transport. And yet he left us with zero "insurance" against an oil crisis. This is totally irresponsible. Good management is not about censoring interviews and "managing communications". It is about planning the way forward, implementing the way forward and simultaneously managing the risk of going forward.

Thanks to Dr Gatt's inaction Enemalta faces a Lm50 million deficit which ultimately has to be paid by Joe Public. Last winter Joe Public spent weeks of discomfort due to the shortage of bottled gas. Two serious blunders in one year surely must be enough to tell Dr Gatt and his boss that it is time for Dr Gatt to call it a day.

Those who "can't", consult. So please, for the good of the nation, Dr Gatt must forget his leadership or management qualities and become a consultant. He will not be the first Maltese minister to follow this lucrative career path.