Participant observer in the waiting room

Salvu Felice Pace (November 8) now has the Finance Minister’s confirmation that my writing is about the real-life experiences of people who have to accept certain jobs because it is either that or nothing, even though the conditions in some cases are not very different from slavery. In the Budget speech, Tonio Fenech announced that:

“As promised in the electoral programme we need to address abuses in the labour sector. The government will be setting up a unit which will be checking that all workers employed with contractors which provide government services such as cleaners, carers and security persons, get their due wages and benefits. Those employers using the services of workers engaged in an irregular manner or who are breaking the law with regard to conditions of employment, and of the tender awarded, will have their contract terminated.”

So there, Mr Felice Pace can now believe me when I write about the racket going on in this area. He has the minister’s reassurance that this is the situation and it is even worse since Mr Fenech spoke about the public sector only. This bad state of affairs is also existent in certain areas of the private sector.

What Mr Felice Pace must also realise is that this is not something which crystallised recently because of the recession. The pledge to see to this dire situation was an electoral one and it was made because pre-2008 Nationalist candidates, just like Labour candidates, were reporting to their respective parliamentary groups on the rampant abuse of conditions of employment. When one doesn’t have a job and needs to work everything becomes acceptable, even Dickensian conditions.

With regard to the way John Dalli was treated as compared to Chris Said, I do not have to elucidate any further as to why the latter’s resignation was a sham. One only needs to listen to one of Mr Dalli’s public statements about the issue, which says it all: “My government wanted to bury me six feet under”. And, no, it would not have been difficult for the Prime Minister to take on Mr Dalli’s portfolio or hand it over to one or two of his other ministers while the investigation was going on, just like he did in Dr Said’s case.

As for the online comments, I, of course, had to quote them, albeit against my wont. I couldn’t quote from a dictionary, or an encyclopaedia, or a Bible, could I? Had I done that my critic would have said I wasn’t comparing like with like.

The confusion in Mr Felice Pace’s mind knows no bounds. He calls my open invitation for him to visit my surgery a gimmick, because (1) if he were to come unannounced he would be breaking data protection rules and (2) if he were to make formal arrangements to come, he would find “a charade set up by the likes of One News reporters”.

How tiresome. Mr Felice Pace is fretting unnecessarily. He may come unannounced; many of my constituents come that way. Where do data protection rules come in?

Mr Felice Pace will only have to sit in my waiting room and spend some time as an observer there and listen to the people talking. He will get a good idea of what the problems are. My helpers, who see to it that those waiting to see me are comfortable, invariably learn about many problems before I have listened to them. And so will Mr Felice Pace if he comes over. Such is the atmosphere. He may also be a participant observer if he wants and join in the conversation.

Unlike what Mr Felice Pace predicts, there will be no television crews, not only because he will come unannounced but because there’s no need. Why does he imagine that if he were to fix an appointment with me, media workers would be there to report the event? I honestly don’t see what the news value would be.

The perplexity in Mr Felice Pace’s mind is further externalised when he ends his letter by asking me about properties being returned to the “rightful owners”. I could not make the connection between property and the resignations I wrote about in my column. Who knows? Is he maybe referring to the latest government foray in this area, that of the White Rocks land worth €500 million? When we were given the impression that it’s all about a sports complex? When in fact it is pure land speculation offered in our name by the government via means of a direct allocation instead of through a transparent tendering process?

Editor’s note: This correspondence is now closed.