Roamer’s column

It is now clear that in the future old men and women will tell their sons the story of 9/11, a date that “will ne’er go by, from this day to the ending of the world, but (those ) in it will be remembered” – the victims and the firemen who rushed to their death to save other people’s lives, that “band of brothers”. Nor should it ever be forgotten in the land of the brave, the land of the free.

One does expect the opposition’s policies, not its sound bites, to be known by now

Today, because it is in the nature of things for evil acts to be remembered, and for good ones, too, Malta remembers; as do men of goodwill everywhere.

Plan, anybody?

Alfred Sant is not everybody’s darling; ask Dom Mintoff, but it was not the latter who, in fact, did him in, more Sant’s ineptness in taking the unfortunate decision to turn an administrative issue into a matter for a vote of no confidence. What followed is history; he had not planned for it.

Well to record, while we are at it, a no-no that many see as the start of his downfall: his decision to replace three letters with another three – VAT with CET.

This he had planned. As he had planned the introduction of a prescription charge for state-issued free medicines, something, I hasten to add, I suggested in this column before the 1996 election. I admit, with equal alacrity, that the idea was probably his before I mooted it.

Also fair is the comment that whereas Sant brought some form of intellect to his politics, the man who succeeded him has yet to display his. I understand Joseph Muscat is even comfortable with the idea that ‘the end justifies the means’, which is bilge for thought.

And like Sant, who was prepared to sup with the devil if that translated into votes, Muscat will promise everything and anything to anyone and everybody, even a candidature of the Labour Party at the next election to Cyrus Engerer, if he reckons this will gain him votes in 2013. This is called planning.

Nor was the Labour Party’s spokesman backward in going backward when he was asked what concrete proposals Labour had for dealing with what it called the deficit and debt problems. (It should be unnecessary to point out that there is no deficit problem; as to the national debt, which stands at 68 per cent of GDP (of which a mere two per cent is foreign debt) compare this with Japan’s 204 per cent; Greece’s 137 per cent; Italy’s 133 per cent; America’s 99 per cent; and Britain’s 89 per cent – as at March of this year).

We were told Labour would “focus on results, not on spending... on cost effectiveness, higher efficiency and productivity, meeting timeframes, avoiding cost delays, eliminating wastage and overruns, eradicating bureaucracy...” – and making pigs fly?

The brutal question to ask is, would Labour cut spending or raise revenue through taxes to finance its programme? We know the answer but Labour refuses to confirm it. One does not expect to be told every detail of policy the opposition has in mind in its bid for power; but one does expect its policies, not its sound bites to be known by now.

Labour could literally take a leaf out of the book published by Republican Texas governor Rick Perry, now a frontline runner in the Republican race for President stakes. In it he listed in detail what he believes is needed to rescue America from Barack Obama.

At this stage we should be privy to Labour’s plan to translate its intention to “focus more on cost effectiveness, higher efficiency... etc.” into an empirical plan based on publicly revealed policies.

Muscat’s mood after Moody’s

We have all read or heard that Moody’s downgraded Malta a notch from A1 to A2. Anybody with an ounce of curiosity read on to discover why. Not Joseph Muscat, who called a press conference and laid the blame squarely on the Prime Minister and the government. Visionless Lawrence Gonzi mucked up the country’s economic growth.

I have heard people whose mind is still this side of sanity put forward the proposition that ‘we need a change’ – referring to government, not underwear. This lot have been around too long, they say. Some of the media are following in these shaky footsteps.

We used to hear similar sentiments voiced around 1970 – and we got Mintoff for 17 years. So what follows has the ‘we need a change’ people in my radar.

I would ask them to keep in mind, if change is what they want, what Muscat said about the Moody downgrade after it was made abundantly clear by the agency that Malta’s problem was not its finances (credit rating for banks remained high) and certainly not its economic performance. No; Malta’s Sod’s Law was that it was open to the vagaries of countries whose economic performance, should it be poor, was bound to affect that of the island.

The soddishness of Sod was made more manifest a day after the publication of the Moody’s report. Eurostat came up with the news that Malta registered the largest economic growth in the eurozone during the second quarter – 2.8 per cent over the same period last year.

The performance of Germany (0.1 per cent), France (0 per cent), Italy (0.3 per cent) and the UK (0.2 per cent) was, to put it euphemistically, troubling.

Where the eurozone is stalling, Malta seems to be in comparative overdrive – and thereby, Soddily, hangs the danger.

But what does our sainted Leader of the Opposition, who is supposed to be providing ‘the change we need’ have to say? Of any worth, nothing; for purposes of boos and cat-calls, much.

Example – loose translation: “It is no thanks to the government that unemployment was not significantly worse because in other countries it was government intervention that saved enterprises whereas here it was enterprise that saved the economy.”

His short memory span conveniently failed to recall – in effect was hindered by a psychological blackout – the help given to local industries that would have folded up but for direct government assistance. These same aided industries are now back on their feet and employing more workers.

What he sees as his trump card when the election campaign is formally underway, is the bill for water and electricity.

Cutting these back would seem to be his solution. Asked how he would do this, the answer came back that we would have to wait longer for an explanation; after all, this was an electoral promise – few sequiturs have been more non. So, click heels and wait if you wish to learn what Muscat means by a “sustainable deficit” and what magic wand he will wave to bring one about.

Lamentable was Muscat’s failure to acknowledge that Moody’s did not see the government’s problem as being, principally, one of its making. See Sod above. This is not merely political dishonesty; it is a severe absence of political integrity. We need a change into this? Make our day.

End-note. Contrary to the attitude taken by Muscat, the Prime Minister’s reaction was what one has come to expect from him. His response was calm, measured and optimistic.

A lesser man would have cavilled with the downgrade; instead Gonzi placed it in the context of what was happening around us.

And, yes, we should take courage from the fact that Moody’s acknowledged the way in which the government dealt successfully, more successfully than most, with crisis years 2008 and 2009.

Waffle, anybody?

Well, the pre-budget document does just that. Who sez? The shadow for economy and financial services, that’s who. In a newspaper article that was passed on to me he ended his contribution with this:

“Our country needs a clear direction on how to enhance its business environment in order to attract foreign and local direct investment, rendering it more efficient, productive, and, consequently, competitive.”

It was only last Sunday that I quoted National Statistics Office figures to show that foreign direct investment soared in 2010 to €12.4 billion.

This investment took at least three things into account (there are always three things) each of which indicates sensible stewardship by this nerveless, incompetent government and others provided by the Nationalist Party since 1987.

One; Malta has been firmly established as an investment location in a number of economic activities, ranging from financial services to pharmaceuticals to information technology, to name but three, two of which were regarded with suspicion by Mintoff’s socialist government and one never even knocked at our door, then.

The concept of an investment location was Eddie Fenech Adami’s.

Two; a low level of unemployment during a period of chronically high unemployment in a number of EU countries – a shade over six per cent compared with double-figure percentages in a number of EU countries.

Three; general stability due in great part to the clear direction business and enterprise have been encouraged to take, a successful effort to bring the deficit down to under three per cent and, so the budget document predicts, to bring that figure down still further.

The strategy in the pre-budget document will now be fleshed out into estimates that will form the basis of the finance minister’s speech for Budget 2012. He will present this to the House six or seven weeks hence.

No doubt it will be pilloried by shadows all over the place, but it is in the nature of these speeches so to be treated.

Budgets 2010 and 2011 were rubbished by the Leader of the Opposition; yet, contrary to what happened in many EU countries, they delivered employment, they attracted investment, they brought the deficit down to level required by Maastricht.