The Labour Party was voted into power one year ago following its resounding victory over the Nationalist Party. Now that the so-called honeymoon period is over, I would like to put forward some critical comments on the government’s performance or non-performance, as the case may be.

I must admit that I have been baffled by some of the decisions taken to date. By way of example, who, for heaven’s sake, conjured up the ‘brilliant’ idea of using €4.2 million of taxpayer’s money to bail out the bankrupt lessee of the Cafe Premier, in Valletta? A major part of this money was even used to pay off a €2.5 million bank loan owed by the company to Banif Bank! The landlord (the Land Department) also wrote off the company’s arrears of rent, income tax and VAT, to boot! Isn’t that just unbelievable? This property could and should have reverted to the government at no cost once ground rent to the tune of €200,000 had not been paid.

Besides the €4 million that have, in my opinion, been squandered, there is another important matter to consider. Is the government aware of the message being sent to the business community in general and, more specifically, to other lessees of government property? Should they pay rent, income tax, VAT and other dues or would they perhaps be better off waiting until they go bankrupt and then turn to the government for help?

Whether the idea was hatched by the previous government or not holds no water with me. The deal was concluded by the present government, which could have cancelled it had it wanted to. The government should not use taxpayers’ money to bail out private enterprise. I am a member of the fourth generation of owners of a family business and never in my wildest dreams would I expect public money to be used to bail our company out if things were to go wrong.

With all due respect, I think the prime minister needs much better advice from his kitchen cabinet. Is he perhaps surrounding himself with advisers who tell him only what he wants to hear? He should realise that his government is inadvertently and unnecessarily sending out the wrong messages time and time again.

The prime minister promised prior to the elections that his appointments would be based on meritocracy. With this in mind, I cannot but question the wisdom and rationale behind several of them. I shall not enter into the merits of each appointment but it appears that it is becoming the ‘in’ thing to reward former politicians and other friends by appointing them as envoys here, there and everywhere. It was also not a very wise move to appoint the wife of a current Cabinet minister as one of these envoys.

I never really warmed to the idea of offering or selling Maltese citizenship to foreigners on a large scale. The government thought otherwise, of course, and marketed the scheme as an innovative way of raising €1 billion. While I don’t deny that the injection of such a sum could be a welcome boost to our economy, I think that we might have considered other options to raise funds.

According to an EU report published a few years ago, tax evasion in Malta costs the country in the region of €600 million annually. If we could somehow recoup even one third of this amount, the country could have done without this scheme and still have increased its tax revenues by €1 billion over a five-year period.

This government is probably making too many unforced errors

Although both parties now seem to agree that this scheme is the best thing since sliced bread, there is no doubt in my mind that it undermines the accepted concepts/norms of citizenship with the danger that Malta will probably end up  losing some of the good name it has built up over the years.

We must not underestimate the value of our country’s reputation. Our international standing is an abstract asset that is virtually impossible to monetise but it is nonetheless worth a fortune. I was once told by the holder of a high office that I should be proud to be Maltese. I feel much less proud now that I know that all it takes for a rich Russian, Chinese or American to become Maltese is a donation/investment of a combined value in the region of €1 million!

Without entering into the legal intricacies, I believe that another wrong message has also been sent out on the saga of the tampered smart meters. How is this country ever going to be steered away from corrupt practices that plague us day in and day out (and have done so ever since I can remember) unless we start to come down like a ton of bricks on all those who steal? We need to educate everyone that ‘stealing from the government’ is exactly the same as stealing from your neighbour, grocer, supermarket or whoever. Tax evasion and abuse of social benefits are also another form of theft and should be condemned.

If I may be allowed to make an analogy with a football team, this government is probably making too many unforced errors. It is prone to giving the ball away much too easily. Its game plan should try to emulate that of FC Barcelona, one of the greatest football teams of all time. One of this team’s major strengths is its ability to retain possession of the ball. By doing so it automatically reduces the time its opponents have to cause damage. Like the coach of a football team, the prime minister has to take political responsibility for his government’s deeds and make amends where necessary.

All the above is not to say that many positive things have not been achieved by this government in its first year of office.

A Cabinet reshuffle is now on the cards and I hope that the new team will try much harder to reduce the number of errors of judgement in the future.