The second week of the 2008 election campaign was characterized mainly by the Prime Minister’s last ditch and desperate attempt to salvage some political credibility for his party after it became clear that the PN could not shake off the scent and shadow of corruption which have clung to it like a leech for good reason.
Dr Gonzi has risked greatly and has used up practically all the political capital he has left on this issue. This is why he has finally announced a certain cabinet move when he is not certain to be the person forming the next cabinet. The grand announcement that, should the PN be re-elected, (that is a big if) Dr Gonzi would take over responsibility for MEPA and the environment is a clear and unmitigated admission not only of the failures of Environment Minister George Pullicino but also that the PN is not squeaky clean on this issue.
The way the Prime Minister has tried to sell this idea has, however, put him in a fix.
First of all, as Dr Alfred Sant retorted, this announcement does not exculpate Dr Gonzi from any political responsibility for the strange goings on within MEPA. As the saying goes, the buck stops with Dr Gonzi. Over and above this, as Dr Sant also said twice without the Prime Minister replying or denying it, there are people who have stated categorically that they informed Dr Gonzi about the not so very transparent way certain building development permits were issued. These same people said that despite this all they got from Dr Gonzi was a cup of coffee or, perhaps, two. There was no concrete action taken on their complaints.
Thus, Dr Gonzi’s grand announcement about taking over responsibility for MEPA and the environment after the March 8 election sounds very hollow indeed. Dr Gonzi has always told us to judge him on what he does and not on what he says. This is a case in point. People will judge him as not having done anything about reported corruption in relation to the issuing of building permits. For him to stake his shrinking political capital by trying to persuade us that he will do something about it after the election is not a bright idea but a desperate banana skin.
This banana skin was made more slippery by the Prime Minister’s contention that he would sort out MEPA just as he has sorted out public finances. As everybody knows the situation of the state’s finances is not as rosy as the Prime Minister wants us to believe. Indeed, over the last four years Dr Gonzi, as finance minister has presided over an annual increase in the tax burden of € 46.58 million (LM 20 million) for the last four years. Over and above this Dr Gonzi also raked in money from several and also from the EU. It is estimated that, all together, these three sources of revenue mean that Dr Gonzi had an extra € 500 million (LM 214.65 million) to spend.
Despite this, the overall national debt still spiraled to € 3.5 billion (LM 1.4 billion). In addition to this all the capital projects undertaken by the GonziPN government are either behind schedule or over-budget or both and this has cost us the taxpayers an additional € 445 million (LM 191 million)
These are hardly sound finances and even less of a record to boast about and cite as proof that one can deliver “MEPA fis-sod” and “Ambjent fis-sod!” as Dr Gonzi would have us believe.
So, objectively, what Dr Gonzi hoped would be a bright idea which would revive his and his party’s fortunes has ended up being as being a political banana skin of the first order.