Start as you mean to go on

Foreign Minister George Vella is irritated by the media’s looking into the matter of whether he’s seeing private patients or not. When asked about it, you could sense he felt that the members of the press were coming down hard on him, simply because he was a Labour minister. He had only seen a couple of long-time patients after all, not hobnobbed with big business.

What really strikes me about this kind of reaction is people’s lack of empathy and solidarity with others

In an obvious dig at former Nationalist minister Tonio Fenech, Vella pointed out that he had never jetted off on a businessman’s private plane to watch a football match. And he had never accepted a clock.

Why didn’t the press look into that he asked? Why pick on him for standing by his patients? You could almost imagine him snorting when the Ministerial Code of Ethics was mentioned.

Incidentally, that’s the very same code that was waved in Fenech’s face every time he stood up to pontificate about integrity in public life, or the power station, or anything else. For you see, contrary to Vella’s assertions, this is not a case of selective victimisation of Labour politicians, but simply a question of seeing that the code of ethics is adhered to.

Now, Vella’s may be a minor breach – I’m convinced that he’s not cosying up to business moguls and that he was only tending to loyal patients. However, the absolutely cavalier air with which Labour exponents are disregarding the code of ethics, is worrying.

The code prohibits ministers and parliamentary secretaries from engaging in private work for a reason. The idea is to prevent divided loyalties, or the perception of divided loyalties, or even the perception that a minister’s private patients or clients may be afforded preferential treatment.

This is probably not what’s taking place in Vella’s case, but it’s not beyond reason to imagine that people will choose to consult and pay a doctor or a lawyer who is a minister to try to zoom up to the top of hospital waiting lists or to be given social housing.

As for the Foreign Minister’s infringement being of a trivial nature – it may very well be so, but he should start as he means to go on – if only to avoid being lumped with Fenech and his infamous clock.

• As I write this, I imagine the big cheeses at the Malta Union of Teachers are patting themselves on the back, after succeeding in bringing about the suspension of the reserved parking scheme for residents in Sliema. A one-hour strike by the MUT was enough to strike fear in the heart of the Minister of Transport or the Minister for Local Councils or whoever is responsible for these things, and the scheme was promptly suspended.

The official reason given for the suspension was that “it was introduced without an adequate trial period and it was causing problems to all those who wanted to park in the locality”. And that was that.

The same kind of scheme that is operational in Valletta, Hamrun, Floriana, Ta’ Xbiex, Naxxar and Vittoriosa was out of the question for the locality of Sliema. Cue for much rejoicing by the gormless idiots who yammer on about how they pay their road tax and are therefore entitled to park wherever they please.

Maybe it’s because I am an affected resident, but what really strikes me about this kind of reaction is people’s lack of empathy and solidarity with others. People living in towns or villages that do not have a high influx of visitors or workers have little experience of the inconvenience, the expense and the utter frustration residents feel when they drive around the neighborhood to find a berth for their car somewhere remotely nearby.

They don’t know what it’s like to come home loaded with heavy shopping and to find that there’s absolutely nowhere to stop and unload. We’re not talking about parking outside one’s home. That’s unheard of. No, we’re talking about the sheer impossibility of finding anywhere to park within a radius of six or seven blocks.

Now the people who object to residents’ parking schemes will set their lips in that annoying cat’s bum mouth, and insist that residents made their choice when they opted to live in a particular locality, and if they don’t like it they can leave.

That’s hardly a solution, is it? Upping sticks and relocating every time the parking situation gets worse. After all, there’s nothing to stop history repeating itself and the Malta Environment and Planning Authority dishing out planning permission for huge developments without any consideration for traffic impact assessments.

This was precisely what happened in Sliema. As for using public transport – well yes, that’s a possibility – despite the absolute balls-up made of it by the previous administration. But I wonder why people will insist on making others use it, but adamantly refuse to board a bus themselves. As long as someone else is bearing the brunt of atrocious planning decisions and being inconvenienced, they’re simply too selfish to try and seek out solutions.

cl.bon@nextgen.net.mt