From make-believe to reality

Since the dawn of man, politicians have been torn between a wish to say something memorable and the terror of saying something that could later be held against them. They want to sound significant but they are reluctant to give hostages to fortune. Yet, they persist in making gaffes with unabashed brazenness.

It is one thing for politicians to commit themselves about the future with the risk of being caught in the fullness of time, like those who pronounced that civil aircraft would never fly. It is another when politicians are temporarily (or conveniently) bereft of their political antenna and make statements that are belied time and again. In such cases, reality pulls the rug from under the perpetrator.

What does one have to say when the last Budget speech blandly promised the prospect of more than a dozen initiatives, which were highlighted in previous budgets with pomp and circumstance, only to be instantly forgotten?

On this occasion, Finance Minister Tonio Fenech performed in the tradition of his predecessor, John Dalli, who made a foray in the world of political make-belief in his first Budget speech, delivered in November 1991. On that memorable day, Mr Dalli outlined a five-year programme to sanitise the economy.

He launched a concise and unambiguous programme with the stated aim of reducing the deficit to three per cent of GDP. The public sector was to be whittled down to 225 - 30 per cent of the gainfully occupied population. Unemployment was to be maintained at a level of four per cent. Priority was to be given to plans for the reduction of the welfare gap.

Mr Dalli presided continuously over his ministry (with the exception of 20 short months when Labour was in office) until the turn of the century. During that period, the economy moved in a direction that was diametrically opposite to that which was programmed.

There was a precipitous increase in tax levels. Public expenditure swallowed up the big increase in tax revenue. The government's voracious appetite necessitated a dramatic increase in public debt.

The situation produced a red alert. The Governor of the Central Bank went out of his way to lament publicly that we had been consuming beyond our means "for several years". Nobody listened. The Maltese economy has been edging dangerously in the direction of a black hole ever since.

I recall reading an extract from a 1997 report by a team from the International Monetary Fund, which concluded that the medium-term outlook for Malta at that time was "clouded by the emergence of large fiscal imbalances that, if not addressed, will crease difficulties for macro-economic management in the future".

The report went on to observe that "public debt levels are rising at a disturbingly rapid pace, the sharp drop in national savings will slow the pace of growth in future living standards and the rundown in foreign assets erodes an important buffer in managing adverse shocks - a significant danger given Malta's small size and undiversified production structure".

Neither the Finance Ministry nor the High Command at the Auberge de Castille batted an eyelid.

One doesn't need a national coalition to embark on a course that involves cutting down the cost of government, enhancing Malta's competiveness and mobilising all our available resources.

It is not enough to aspire to a generation of politicians who say what they mean and mean what they say. Politicians across the board need the democratic impulse of an electorate that scrutinises the performance of the political party machines, rather than vice-versa, and the unforgiving pressure of the independent media.

Malta must be liberated from the suffocating burden of expensive quangos that have proved to be as incompetent as they are financially extravagant.

Another endemic problem is the efficiency of the bureaucracy. For years it has been unable to collect government revenue with efficiency, let alone to collect mounting revenue arrears. In many departments, the service offered to consumers is dusty.

Unless the bureaucracy is primed and upgraded, progress is impeded or, at best, slowed down.

It is no fun being a responsible minister. It is even less fun being a concerned MP with serious intent to turn the wheels of progress.

What Malta needs most is a generation of politicians with a mindset attuned to turning those wheels.