Shipyard heat

Hot language should not melt the cold reasoning required to address the shipyard question properly. The question is: does Malta want to have a maritime set-up flowing out of what used to be the shipyard? The answer has to be yes. What is then left to establish is what viable means and how best to go about achieving it.

The government says this is the best time to privatise the 'yard - there is high international demand for maritime services. It claims to have an expert report which says that a viable private maritime industry arising out of the break-up of the shipyard will require a workforce of no more than 700 individuals.

The statement is meaningless, unless the expert report underpinning it is published so that it can be thoroughly assessed, and unless the report gives a detailed breakdown of the skills that will be required in the privatised maritime set-up. That is why it is clear the government is going about it the wrong way. It should be up to the private bidders for the 'yard to say in a business plan what their operational projections are, and what level and composition of workforce they would require.

Expressions of interest that are not accompanied by business plans are meaningless. Malta Enterprise, when it discusses foreign direct investment with interested parties, invariably asks them to declare what level of employment they project. Why is the government acting so differently in the case of the shipyard?

It is becoming increasingly clear that the authorities are not as yet in a position to say what it is exactly that they want to pass over to private interests. It cannot be that they want to pass over the huge tract of land that is at present part of the shipyard. The government, therefore, has to parcel the land under the four heads of activity that it is trying to privatise.

It has to determine how best to break up the existing dockyard into four distinct entities. Interested private operators can then apply for all of them or for a part or more of the parcel.

The only thing that the government seems to have determined is that it wants to privatise the yard's land and equipment without any obligation for bidders to take up a given number of the current employees. That is a strange 'first' in the long-running privatisation process.

Aside from the ugly fact that Lawrence Gonzi is breaking his personal word - before the general election he cynically assured dockyard workers that the 'yard would not be downsized - this is the first time that privatisation is not being linked to employment.

For all we know, private interests will be allowed to take over bits and pieces of the 'yard without any obligation to employ a single Maltese worker. In the process, the government would have spent €49 million to buy off the existing local workforce. Those of us who are tired of funds being poured endlessly into the dockyard, but who prefer to think soberly rather than through prejudice, will find it remarkable that the government insists on using taxpayers' money in this latest way.

Viable should not mean further waste of money. Viable cannot mean private operators taking over prime maritime facilities in the form of a number of hulks. Pouring spleen on the 'yard workers simply does not obscure the fact the scene is littered with much more than their mistakes.

Nevertheless, whatever happened in the past, both in regard to unachieved productivity levels and to job orders which lost the 'yard good money, is in the past. What matters now is how the interested parties move forward.

Broken political promises aside, one understands that jobs cannot be guaranteed. But it is impossible to comprehend privatisation on the basis that the government has invited bland expressions of interest, and its determination to bludgeon the workforce into submission to its flawed way of doing things.

The hot language of the GWU and peaceful demonstrations outside Castille may be met by an impassive government. At the end of the day the government could well have its way. But the cost will not be small.

A blow may be dealt to labour militancy.

But that will not compensate for the capricious wastefulness in the way the privatisation exercise will be carried out. With each day that passes, the government commits itself further to a situation that is not in the best interest of Malta, let alone of that of the workers.

It beggars belief that, now under the charge of Finance Minister Tonio Fenech, privatisation is to be turned on its head in comparison to the way ministers John Dalli and Austin Gatt went about implementing it.

Their way attracted criticism, certainly. But it was based on a logical approach. There is nothing logical in the manner in which Fenech and Gonzi are going about trying to privatise the dockyard.

Hand on heart, they can hardly blame the remaining dockyard workers for being suspicious and asking why things are so different in their particular case.

The government is also risking, if not ensuring, that interested bidders will be put off by the approach it is adopting.