Heavy debits carried forward

The government looks back with some satisfaction at relative economic success during 2011 though its fruits were far from being enjoyed by everybody in reasonably equal measure. On the political front, though, it carries forward a number of significant debits, which cannot be spun away through political engineering, no matter that public money is abusively spent on political propaganda.

That was done in the case of the Delimara power station affair which, as my friend Nalizperla depicted it in his cartoon in yesterday’s The Sunday Times, will haunt Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi though 2010 is dead and buried. Having spent taxpayers’ money to give its twisted version of the truth, the government itself will, in fact, keep it alive through further destruction of the ethos of the Public Accounts Committee.

The Prime Minister will do that directly by acquiescing to Minister Austin Gatt’s ploy to flood the PAC hearings with witnesses, some so-called, on how the BWSC wriggled into being granted the power station extension contract, in contradiction to the government’s stated policy on emission control and in defiance of the Auditor General’s detection of smoke, though he could not locate the fire.

The tide of public opinion is definitely against Dr Gonzi and his merry team on this one. That includes hardened Nationalists. One pointed out to me that when the PAC examined the sale of Mid-Med Bank to the HSBC Group, John Dalli, the Finance Minister who had handled the deal, did not stonewall like Dr Gatt did over the BWSC in the PAC meetings. In response to Labour’s criticism, nine meetings were held and Mr Dalli did not object to any witnesses being called forward to account for their role.

The contrast with the Gonzi-Gatt behaviour could not be clearer. They shielded Dr Gatt, as the minister politically responsible for the project, and those who had shamelessly evaded the Auditor General’s question, who should have been the first to appear before the PAC had that now-devalued Committee been allowed to do its work. Instead, a parody will now be played out with the calling of 150 witnesses, further to dilute the smoke detected by the Auditor General in the context of various unexplained contradictions.

Another heavy debit came to light late in 2010 but very quickly raised the loudest chorus of disagreement imaginable with the Prime Minister. Instead of manfully stating publicly that ministers and parliamentary secretaries were underpaid and discussing what needed to be done, as soon as he was elected in 2008 he gave them an MP’s salary on top of their existing one. Amazingly, few reacted when that came to light. The full reaction came as 2010 petered out and it came to light that an increase was also being awarded to MPs, backdated to 2008.

The government responded to the ensuing widespread public anger by saying that backdated hikes were also given to the Opposition Leader and to the Speaker, neither of whom seemed to have any inkling of that. Labour leader Joseph Muscat and a number of MPs, including the odd Nationalist one, said they would be forfeiting the increase.

At a stroke, Dr Gonzi managed to turn a parliamentary class for whom there was much antipathy to one which is now detested, if not hated. And that without many people being aware of the exact extent of the hikes, which now work out at 64 per cent for ministers and 40 per cent for MPs. Public resentment will be carried forward as so many people feel the pinch. Yet, the Prime Minister shows no sign of understanding that or of taking a reasonable step forward and setting up an independent unit to determine all parliamentary pay.

Other debits carried forward, in the context of sharp majority disagreement with the Prime Minister, include his determination to spend many millions of euros to build a costly and, as yet, unfunded new parliamentary building, to leave the old theatre roofless as well as the walled city of Valletta without a proper gate and to build a breakwater bridge that leads to nowhere.

The more Dr Gonzi shows that, to him, choruses of public criticism are like water off a duck’s back, the heavier the debits carried forward will grow as public resentment and anger multiply.