5,600 vs 4

Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi last week launched the master plan of SmartCity Malta to an eager Dubai and international audience in Dubai's Technology Fair. Flanked by Minister Austin Gatt and Tecom's top officials, he unveiled SmartCity Malta's model that is nothing short of breathtaking, even visually.

SmartCity's model shows how a derelict area will be turned into an IT hub including a lagoon, green avenues, an amphiteatre and a coastal route. This latest mega-project is well on course to create 5,600 jobs and contribute more than four per cent to Malta's wealth creation.

During SmartCity's international inauguration, Tecom announced that some of the companies intending to start working in Malta are considering setting up here even before SmartCity's building has been completed. This would fit in splendidly with the government's vision of Malta as a centre of excellence in IT.

Newsworthy? Of course it was. International media gave this news its due importance with Prime Minister Gonzi on leading business channel CNBC explaining Malta's strides forward in the last few years, including adoption of the euro, in a bid to enhance Malta' attractiveness to foreign investors.

Maltese media, even though enamoured of negative news, all gave utmost prominence to this excellent news. With one exception. For the Labour media, including the GWU daily, this launch and unveiling passed as if it did not happen. Many people were shocked, as I was. Labour even turned down the invitation to follow the event in Dubai.

Many people gravely doubt Labour's fitness to govern Malta in the very new scenario of EU and euro membership. This country is much advanced from the time of Labour's brief stint in office in 1996-98 and is operating within a very new reality. There are big doubts as to Labour's ability to manage the new hospital and our system of education that needs to supply specialised graduates for the new projects and industries being attracted to Malta. Now Labour has shown us all its belief that a mega-project creating 5,600 jobs is not a priority at all. Outrageous. Its ability to manage this mega-project has been called into question by its own actions.

Dubai was featured on Labour's media some time back. But that was only when three shadow ministers and a Labour official visited Dubai with, it later transpired, a secret delegation of four well-known developers who have close ties to Labour and business links with some of the shadow ministers in the same delegation.

That's where Labour's priorities seem to lie. Not with the 5,600 jobs created in SmartCity Malta, not the multiplier effects this will have on the Maltese economy in general, but with the four developers in that infamous Dubai delegation. When it came to choose between 5,600 and four, Labour chose its four. It's not usually in my vein, but I have to say: Labour's fitness to govern is clearly being put in doubt by Labour's own deeds.

Which leads me onto another thought. French President Nicholas Sarkozy, having just won a famous victory for the right in France last June, chose a Socialist as his new foreign minister, Bernard Kouchner. The new British Labour Prime Minister Gordon Brown, interviewed by the Conservative-leaning Telegraph, says he wants to lead a government Conservatives would feel comfortable with and would even choose Conservatives for top posts. Yet in Malta, Labour secretary general Jason Micallef, out of earshot of the media but not of a "naïve" Labour activist with a Youtube account, says Labour wants to be a government for Labourites. Shadow Minister Silvio Parnis confirms: Labour has already chosen the people who will lead government departments and agencies if it wins office again. Has Maltese Labour learned anything in 20 years less 22 months of opposition? Its fitness to govern is, again, increasingly in doubt.

eddiea@onvol.net