Gozo’s double insularity places it in a particular position that requires special attention to tackle its peculiar needs. Therefore the establishment of the Ministry for Gozo was most definitely a step forward to address this set of challenges which need tailor-made solutions.
The hurdles facing Gozo’s socal and economic development process are different from the challenges being faced by the mainland. Decision makers in Malta were, at times, perceived to be too far away from the realities and most pressing needs facing Gozitans. On an institutional level, line ministries were not always deemed to constitute the most effective response. Gozo’s double insularity necessitated the presence of an elected representative in the Cabinet to argue the case for and implement Gozo-centred policies.
However, in spite of the Ministry for Gozo, statistics published by the National Statistics Office point towards a Gozitan regional economy which is struggling to get its fair share of the wealth which the Maltese economy is registering. While the per capita incomes in Malta have attained approximately three quarters the average levels attained in the EU, Gozo’s income levels represent an even smaller fraction of European wealth generation per capita. Gozo’s labour market is overly dependent on the public sector, and to complicate matters, Gozo’s public service is more heavily dependent on relatively unskilled, consequently lower-compensated, activities than the Maltese public service. The Gozitan economy is clearly facing difficulties in generating an adequate demand for jobs and in keeping employment levels at comparable proportions to Malta’s. Worse still, whatever meagre employment creation is taking place in Gozo is not, in general, taking place in higher-value-added sectors. This cocktail of unfriendly developments, if unattended, will push Gozo’s reality further away from Malta’s level and pace of development.
In order to counteract this evident gap between the socio-economic growth of Gozo compared to mainland Malta, the Labour party back in 1994, in the run-up to the 1996 election, had proposed the concept of a regional council for Gozo. Between 1996 and 1998 the Alfred Sant administration launched a white paper on the idea. The Cabinet had approved the guidelines and action was being taken to implement it. In fact a location for the council had been identified and work on it was even started. Many still remember vividly that the proposal was badmouthed by a section of the PN Gozitan elite while others were pressured to stay cold on it even though in private they expressed full approval.
As our old fashioned partisan politics have it, in 1998 the concept was dropped like a stone by the Fenech Adami administration. Through the years gone by the Labour party continued pushing the idea of a regional council and in fact the concept was cemented in the policy document A Development Plan For Gozo As A Region which was approved wholeheartedly at the Labour’s general conference in July 2006. The specifics of a Gozo Regional Council which a Labour government would have set up is found in Chapter 5.3 of this document. This is probably the best document ever published on Gozo’s development. This was subsequently published as part of the SKS book of July 2007 “Pjan Għal bidu Ġdid” where the Gozo Regional Council proposal features on pages 584-585, as part of the electoral manifesto of 2008.
The idea behind the Council was to mobilise the island’s own think tank, from within Gozo, and with genuine central backing work to create dynamic entrepreneurial structures, both public and private. That would have been the main task of the Gozo Regional Council. The idea was to make Gozo operate as a real regional entity, within the constraints of our tiny archipelago, and to try and create meaningful structures for genuine participation that would limit the stifling consequences of centralisation as well as the rampant personal favouritism that operates at grass roots level.
So after years of snubbing Labour’s policy on Gozo’s development, on June 14, during a seminar marking the 50th anniversary of the Gozo Civic Council, a faction of the Nationalist party in Gozo stole the headlines that now it’s time to consider the concept of a Gozo Regional Council. Whether this is mere adulation of Labour’s proposal, as happened with the tunnel, or just to spite the other Nationalist faction in Gozo, we still have to discover but it seems that the rift between the Nationalist factions on that island are well beyond the litigation within the local political or band club.
It was high time, after a quarter of a century under Nationalist rule, to realise that the present setup of local administration has failed the Gozitans, because it never delivered the much awaited prosperity. No wonder we are now all keen on the permanent link, as in the present scenario this is our only lifeline.