Rent reform

Perhaps the most pathetic contribution to the letters page of this newspaper in many years was that made by the communications coordinator of the Ministry for the Family and Social Solidarity - Rent Reform (August 8). It is a whimper, a plea for mercy, a bleating of excuses.

It comes in response to a very long series of readers' letters asking what has become of the minister's promises, prevarication and procrastination on the issue of rent reform.

Around this time last year the minister promised the country a White Paper on rent reform by January 2006. Eight months after its due date, it is promised in her name that she "will present a White Paper on rent laws for public consultation once Cabinet approves the final draft and gives the go ahead for publication".

The latest missive reads: don't blame me, blame the Cabinet.

Is she or is she not a Cabinet minister? Does she or does she not have the courage of her convictions on the screaming need for reform of the rent laws? What sort of a lame excuse is it to blame Cabinet? If Cabinet has humiliated her to such an extent that she is pleading it in her defence why does she not resign, threaten to resign, kick up a fuss, do something? Is this the ultimate exercise in Bundyism: turning the place into a Mickey Mouse country and inviting us to laugh about it? A Cabinet minister who blames Cabinet for her own impotence?

In the next two paragraphs the harakiri defence of the ministry boasts of the ongoing work it is doing and stating that "Cabinet has directed Minister Dolores Cristina to evaluate the results regarding population and housing from the latest census which would give a more complete scenario with regard to landlords and tenants", And then that "The ministry is now waiting for these statistics as well as analysis of similar rent reforms carried out in foreign countries..."

I guess the ministry awaits in poetic comfort persuaded that "They also serve who only stand and wait".

Quite possibly this letter will be held as the epitome of letters of apology that enrage the persons offended.

The census was taken in November 2005. What in Heaven's name is preventing the publication of the data collected? Why should more years go by before the minister wakes up to the idea of making it clear once and for all that the inheritance of leases will not be tolerated? It would take an amendment in the law of a handful of words. It has to be done. It should have been done many years ago. Regardless of any study, report or analysis, it has to be done. Why has it not been done already?

This pathetic bleating in the name of the minister is plain nonsense, worse: it is insolence. It moves nobody to pity but instead twists the knife deeper and more cruelly. If anybody at all in this country still believes that the minister or the government will lift a finger on the rent reform issue from here to the next election, they must have their thinking caged in partisan prejudice and political taboos.

It so happens that nothing at all has been written by the ministry on this issue for many months. By complete coincidence, this lame excuse for a lame excuse was published days after I gave an interview to MaltaToday not only making it clear that the Alternattiva Demokratika referendum campaign on rent reform is still on but also announcing that it will be receiving a major injection of energy come September.

The ministry informed us on Tuesday that "the Prime Minister has given Minister Cristina a brief to take the final proposal up to Cabinet by the end of October".

Whenever the Greens have made a move on this issue the ministry is immediately roused from its slumber and promises another sop. It cannot work forever. The most loyal Nationalist with an interest in this issue must know by now that s/he is being taken for a ride.

What final report to Cabinet? In October? With another promise of a White Paper in January? Is this not exactly what the country was promised last year? Who can believe that this government will present a bill for reform of the rent laws before the next election? In August 2007 this government, at the rate of the current promises, will be mulling over the results of public consultations on rent reform. Does anybody sane believe that this government will present a rent reform Bill on the eve of an election? Does the ministry think the whole country is stupid?

All of this meticulous study and analysis is taking place in silhouette against the background of the conflagration of the rule of law in which the planning boundaries have been extended illegally, without a hint of study, analysis or even the faintest idea of what effect they will have on the economy, the ecology, the social fabric and the cultural well-being of anyone in Malta.

The excruciating ant's pace is reserved for people who have been effectively expropriated and obliged to bear the burden of social housing and more from their personal budgets for 60 years because of the infamous rent laws while speculators, developers and the fillers of party coffers have been given immunity from any study or indeed from any EU or Maltese law by unprecedented institutionalised vandalism.

How come Environment Minister George Pullicino did not await the publication of the census? Does the Ministry of the Family and Social Solidarity inhabit the same planet as the rest of us? Has it been on holiday abroad en masse for the past few weeks?

This time there will be no waiting for developments from the ministry. Ms Cristina can promise White Papers until she is blue in the face. It will not rob the Rent Referendum Campaign of momentum in any way at all. All her credit is up.

She has not delivered and she has obliged the people to avail themselves of the only means allowed to them in terms of law to rid themselves of the disgusting injustice inflicted upon them by the state: by referendum. The rent laws will not be reformed by the PN government. Today the walls can shout it. It is now up to ordinary people to abrogate the existing laws to force this government or the next to enact new ones.

For Alternattiva Demokratika this campaign is part of a much wider policy that goes far beyond the injustice to the owners of the properties expropriated by the rent laws. The detachment of property prices from earning ability, their limitless skyrocketing must be addressed.

It inflicts decades of near poverty on our youth with untold social consequences. It puts us out of reach of our tourism market. It leaves us suffering a competitiveness handicap in our race with the rest of the world, that nowhere else suffers to such an extent.

This government has responded by sending more virgin land under brick. It adds to our problems instead of addressing them. It is not the answer: if we can hoard more than twice the amount of property we need for the foreseeable future, we can hoard any amount.

The answer is to bring the existing property surplus to meet actual demand free of the effects of distorting legislation; to give homebuilders more and market-determined options.

It is a matter of giving property owners and developers clear targets, definite limits, incentives and disincentives to steer us all away from disaster. It is a matter of political leadership as opposed to political ambulance chasing. It is a matter of Green fundamentals: the rational use of resources.

It is also a matter of respect for economic reality which will definitely catch up with us in one way or another no matter how skillfully or how pathetically any politician procrastinates in electoral trepidation.

Dr Vassallo is chairman of Alternattiva Demokratika - The Green Party.

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