What's wrong at the top?

I cannot fathom why the government is now changing course and projecting itself as if it were an authority that has become insensitive to the social needs of the ordinary citizen. Consecutive governments led by the Nationalist Party had earned credibility and trust from the electorate because of their commitments towards national reconciliation, dialogue, solidarity and freedom of expression and association. At times politicians in government were heavily criticised for being weak with the strong and strong with the weak.

The perception that the PN was an elitist political organisation had vanished through time to the extent that it was labelled as moving towards the leftist ideologies much more than the socialist or progressive parties.

The PN has become a populist party - a party that embraces people from all strata of society. It was therefore expected that the yearly budgets presented by Nationalist governments would never neglect the demands of those who are somehow marginalised or in need of social assistance to be able to cope with the prevailing standard of living. The last budget is a case in point; although, admittedly, it was an "election" budget both in terms of its content and presentation. Election fever is quite overdue now but it seems that even the feel-good factor generated by the initiatives and measures announced in the last budget has dissipated.

With an international financial crisis at the doorstep, the adverse consequences we have faced in the past months due to the sky-high prices of oil and raw food, the uncertainty that has threatened the competitiveness of sectors of our industries leading to job losses and with the government's latest plans to address the country's burdensome energy costs, the general feeling is one of doom and gloom.

The government is striving hard to persuade us that the situation is not out of control and it has not yet reached crisis status.

The Prime Minister himself, as if to prove that our economy was still growing at a reasonable rate, boasts of the employment level and the reliability and stability of our banking systems. But the mitigation attempt of the Prime Minister was overshadowed by the shocking news broken by the Minister of Infrastructure and the Minister of Finance. Infrastructure Minister Austin Gatt went straight to the social partners and, typical of him, did not mince his words: There must be a spiral revision of the water and electricity tariffs for both business and households. These must be effective retrospectively. We are late in rectifying the inefficiencies of the energy provider and we are not abiding by the EU directives. Our advisers presented five options out of which four are unsustainable, so, practically, it's option five that we want to adopt.

The social partners were taken by surprise but they shot down the minister's proposal there and then. Then we got to know that the minister did not have the endorsement of the Cabinet.

The Finance Minister declared that it was not a matter of fait accompli and the government was prepared to consider other options. However, the Minister of Finance remained adamant in proclaiming that, whatever the alternative, it would have to be based on the principle that ultimately "we have to pay for the energy we consume!" Yes Minister, of course!

The pre-budget consultation had been shelved and instead the MCESD had to reconvene specifically to discuss the utility rates' issue as a matter of top priority and as a result of a letter of protest sent by the social partners to the Prime Minister.

In my view, this all boils down to governance bad practice. There was no social dialogue, no consultation and not even a socio-economic impact assessment. It had demonstrated the government's detachment from the citizen's day-to-day realities. The government was insensitive to the social demands of the people in need and to the business community that contributes towards the generation of wealth within our constrained economy. It is only due to the pressure exerted by the social partners that the government has now promised to reverse its stand. Oddly enough, in past legislatures the leadership style adopted by the government was quite different.

That is why I keep on questioning what is going wrong at the top?

matyas@maltanet.net