Herrings in the red

Mathematics has never been my strong point. Numbers disconcert and confuse me. I was actually told that I should be hypnotised out of my phobia and that the block was merely psychological, which, like psychosomatic pain, is pain all the same. I was, therefore, thoroughly nonplussed by the front page headlines on Saturday that read Deficit Soars To €271 million as if it were some black eagle or honey buzzard!

Now then, I know and you know that governments play around with millions and trillions of euros just as if it was Monopoly money but this is a bit ridiculous, isn't it? Here we are in dire straits that have little or nothing to do with either the price of oil or the credit crunch being told for the umpteenth time that our Ministry of Finance has gone over the top yet again; all this after precisely nine months from the election when we were bamboozled into thinking that we were all in the pink, not the red, please note, and that dramatically reduced tax percentages and other benefits would be the order of day for 2008.

Had you asked anyone whether this financial disaster would have happened in March they would have thought you were mad. Originally, we are told, the government planned to end 2008 with a deficit of a mere €68.4 million, a bagatelle, devised, no doubt, by the electoral spin-doctors, however by the November budget; the figure had practically tripled to €200 million!

The Times report lists the various expenditures incurred that purport to justify this unstaunchable wound; nothing untoward; social security and health, technology and IT. So where is it all going? It must be those tens of thousands of Father Christmases, all expert burglars, hanging out of people's balconies that raid the Central Bank every night! Still, even when asked last October, the ministry insisted that it would be alright on the night as it was expecting substantial income tax revenues in December. Not substantial enough by the look of it. Especially galling when I had told both Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi and Finance Minister Tonio Fenech personally (and all you lot too) that the only way to rake it in was to tax empty property; not villeġġjaturi (holiday houses) and second homes, but properties held for speculative purposes. Not only would it have bridged the deficit but liberalised the housing situation too. Talk about killing two buzzards with one shotgun!

The government and Malta, in other words, you and I, have not , at least, had to bail out any banks or institutions as such, however, we have had three months of still inconclusive solutions to the colossal Enemalta deficit brought about not by the price of oil but its own apparently irremediable inefficiencies. Stories of how many Enemalta men it takes to change a light bulb are now surpassing the carabinieri and Irish stock jokes. Which reminds me, Dr Gonzi: Where are our five energy saving light bulbs please?

The price of oil rose and fell and still our bills remain astronomical and threaten to blight our New Year at the outset. Everyone is terrified of receiving the energy bill. Instead of diffusing a potential economic freeze by emulating Gordon Brown and reducing VAT to 15 per cent, the government has provoked the irate opposition of all the social partners and unions with its movable goalposts as stand after stand is taken, one time by the Prime Minister and another by Minister Austin Gatt. Still the situation remains unresolved.

The fact that the opera house saga has been brought out of cold storage is in my opinion indicative that the government has had to create a distraction from the real issue. The opera house is always sure to generate enough hot air and divergent opinion to diffuse the real issue in hand and distract public opinion. That the Prime Minister insists on having Parliament there is a sure irritant that is bound to attract the attention of all the pen-happy individuals who really believe that the Renzo Piano and Opera House project will actually happen. Pull the other one Dr Gonzi!

With €71million over budget one can hardly go for a capital project like this, can one? Unless, of course, Bill Gates decides to fund it; but then it will become City Gate Bill. Ridiculous.

As for the Opera House itself and St John's and St Elmo... they are hardly the right kind of projects to embark on when Malta and his wife have just experienced the most dismal Christmas since those unmemorable ones that were blighted, probably deliberately, by Dom Mintoff in the 1970s and 1980s.They are merely red herrings.

So here we are poised to bury a sad, fraught and frustrating 2008 into the dustbins of history in a swirl of champagne if we can still afford it with this €271 million budget hanging over the cradle of the mewling infant 2009! Poor baby! What chance has it? With the best will in the world our New Year resolutions towards frugality and austerity will be hardly a matter of choice, will they?

kzt@onvol.net