A nice gesture

It was undoubtedly a nice gesture. The Prime Minister thanking everybody for their contribution towards a successful CHOGM meeting. It was somehow unexpected, especially as it came soon after the bitter attacks on the GWU.

Government sources had repeatedly stressed that the protest activities staged by the union would have a bad impact on the potential investors who had come to Malta during the Commonwealth conference.

The Prime Minister must have had second thoughts and felt satisfied that the objectives set for the CHOGM meeting in our country had been met. Indeed, probably, Malta did get its "four minutes of fame" as Andy Warhol once put it. This for a price of about Lm2.3 million. Not exactly cheap. In past times, in other circumstances, such an expense would have gone unnoticed.

These days it is somehow different. The people know they are being asked to help carry the cross; and many in our society are finding it ever harder to make ends meet. This is what might have prompted the Prime Minister to publicly thank all of us. It was money well invested. It helped put Malta back on the map (evidently EU membership has not sufficed). It will boost our tourism and attract foreign investors to our country.

Perhaps the government will now tell us by how much tourism is likely to increase in the next two years. Are they likely to come from Africa or from the Caribbean? In last year's budget, the Prime Minister had deemed it fit to bind the allocation of additional resources to the Ministry of Tourism to a specific increase in tourist arrivals. Why should it be different now? What sort of foreign investment can our country hope for out of CHOGM? Have any cost-benefit analysis been prepared?

Even those that put their weight behind CHOGM agree that at best it was a "shotgun" event. In the present circumstances, this is not the appropriate approach to marketing our country. The money spent could have been more effective had it been channelled to Malta Enterprise and the Malta Tourism Authority to beef up their own marketing campaigns. That is, if we really believe in the effectiveness of these organisations, as the government boasts that it does.

It is preposterous to believe that investment will flow into a country because it has staged a CHOGM meeting. Ask Nigeria, our predecessor. And I hope that Uganda, our successor, will not deem likewise. It is equally absurd to claim that investors could have been scared by a union distributing leaflets or holding a protest march. Who in today's world would be surprised by such happenings? Tony Blair, for one, must have seen much worse during the G8 meetings, even if these are held in much more economically advanced and democratic countries.

After all, what is wrong in telling the rest of the world that not all is perfect in this land of ours? Which of the leaders of the states attending the conference would have been surprised by this? This is the reality we live day by day and which any potential investor worth his/her salt will soon find out.

We are a divided nation, running our affairs along partisan lines. Meritocracy, if anything, comes second. We keep pushing our boys into key posts, allow them to do what they want and once they run into problems talk about cooperation and national consensus. Our government continues to talk as if it had nothing to do with the present state of the economy.

The aim of the GWU must have been to taunt and hassle the government. To a large degree it seems to have succeeded due to the government's undue concern with image rather than substance. The Prime Minister must have finally realised this and decided not to mention anything about the GWU in his thank you message published in The Times.

That the financing of CHOGM was a further financial burden on the people in these hard times should have been used to greater advantage by our leaders. Instead, we were caught in the middle of the tug of war between the UK and our other European partners over the reform in the EU's agricultural policy. There is little doubt that the UK still uses the Commonwealth, its primary sphere of influence, to further its own global and regional agenda. It must have been hard for our Prime Minister, after all the efforts and resources that went into CGOGM, to learn that the UK was proposing to solve the present impasse within the EU by reducing the developmental funds earmarked for Objective 1 regions, Malta included.

Given the above, one can understand better why the Prime Minister found it proper to thank Joe and Jane Citizen. For a lucky few the reward was greater than just a nice gesture. A BMW carrying no registration tax. All for a good cause. Part of the proceeds will go to finance this year's L-Istrina campaign. Targets will be met. The economy is on course for a quick recovery. Lacework. The key question remains: Will all this help to connect the government to the people?

fms18@maltanet.net