A new or refurbished Cabinet?

Someone taking a quick glance at yesterday’s Cabinet appointments could be forgiven for thinking he was looking at the line up from the discredited government of 1996 – with names like George Vella, Evarist Bartolo and Karmenu Vella seemingly carrying on from where Dom Mintoff rudely interrupted them.

Mr Bartolo had said when Joseph Muscat was first elected leader of the party five years ago, “the more things change, the more they remain the same”. Applied to his own appointment and a few others yesterday, he would be right; however, the new Prime Minister has also thrown his own particular brand into the mix.

He countered the potentially embarrassing situation of having an outright Eurosceptic foreign minister by appointing Louis Grech as EU minister, which is undoubtedly a good move. Dr Muscat may also be setting up Dr Vella for a more prestigious role that will become available in future.

The Prime Minister also found space for a number of his new faces – with people like Edward Scicluna, Konrad Mizzi, Owen Bonnici, Franco Mercieca and Manuel Mallia taking their places in the Government line-up.

One must question, however, whether in this day and age such a large Cabinet is either desirable or necessary.

Lawrence Gonzi’s group of ministers and parliamentary secretaries was probably too small, and he was unable to remedy this due to internal strife; but Dr Muscat has been unnecessarily profligate – not just with numbers but also in terms of the money and financial resources required to sustain such a cumbersome operation and all the staff members, cars, fuel and mobile phone bills that come with it.

Ironically, given all the criticism levelled at the previous Administration over ministerial salaries, this Government is going to cost the taxpayer far more at a time when companies and government entities around the world are doing everything they can to shrink for the sake of financial efficiency.

Meanwhile, a couple of appointments may well come back to haunt the Prime Minister.

Dr Muscat is undoubtedly deserving of praise for the manner in which he has handled his elevation to Prime Minister in recent days and the Labour Party victory; which, contrary to some predictions, has been remarkably peaceful and serene.

Much of the credit for that is down to his approach but it is also a welcome sign that Malta is growing up as a nation. Labour’s call of Malta Tagħna Lkoll has been the cornerstone of this, though Dr Muscat quickly contradicted his opening message of the PL’s preparedness to work with everybody by appointing a potentially divisive figure as head of the civil service, who wasted no time in asking all the permanent secretaries to resign.

This was a crass approach to an issue that required a far more delicate touch and it will be interesting to see whether this is perpetuated – in which case the plaudits for the new Prime Minister’s approach will come to an end very quickly – or whether Labour learns a quick first lesson and goes about things in a more delicate manner in future. We will soon find out as more appointments are made in the coming weeks.

But by setting out his stall on unity, Dr Muscat must now abide by it and make good on his promise that he will be working hard to achieve a Malta where everybody has a place.

It is to be hoped that forces within his party do not put a stop to this.