The Finance Minister, Edward Scicluna, is reported to have said some testy things about critics of some of projects the government is very fond of. He was also dismissive of critics of the eurozone’s deal with Greece. He’s said, essentially, that in both cases the critics are being unreasonable and unfair. They’re not seeing the bigger picture.

Well, are they?

Should the critics follow the minister’s urging to be more broad-minded and positive?

As it happens, a reply to Scicluna was given almost two months ago.

On May 23, the 1998 Nobel laureate in economics, Amartya Sen, delivered a public lecture on austerity economics (whose edited version was published by the New Statesman on June 4). Sen’s main focus was on why the austerity measures imposed on Greece and other countries contradicted some fundamental economic knowledge.

A real need for institutional reform (pensions, labour laws, etc.) is being confused with an imagined need for austerity, which actually makes the needed reforms more difficult. It’s this elementary confusion that explains why so many leading economists have condemned the austerity being imposed.

But Sen said something else of much broader relevance:

“Had the policy leaders of Europe (adherents of a peculiarly narrow view of financial priority) allowed more public discussion, rather than taking unilateral decisions in secluded financial corridors – encouraging no public discussion – it is possible that the policy errors could have been prevented, through the standard procedures of deliberation, scrutiny and critique[…] Democracy should be about preventing mistakes through participatory deliberations rather than about making heads roll after mistakes have been made.”

That’s an argument for open criticism that’s different from the one we often hear.

Usually, permitting criticism is justified on grounds of the right to free expression: it’s something that democrats have to learn to put up with because people must be allowed to have their say, irrespective of the worth of what their opinion happens to be.

Sen is saying something different. He’s justifying criticism by saying leaders can actually learn something from it. It’s helpful for policy. Democracy is ‘government by discussion’. Its strength is that it maximises deliberation.

Does this general principle apply in the cases of the projects that Scicluna was defending? He was reported to be referring in particular to the 5G testing to be carried out by the Chinese ICT giant, Huawei; the American University of Malta project by the Jordanian construction magnate, Hani Saleh; and the deal involving Barts medical school in the Gozo general hospital.

Scicluna was reported as saying that criticism of these projects was becoming ridiculous. Every valid investment should be good news for the country.

Well, thank you, minister.

The best way to shut up the critics would be to conduct government by discussion

If an investment is valid, then, of course, that would be good news for the country. However, for each of the projects mentioned by Scicluna, the issue is whether they are indeed worthwhile (or ‘valid’).

Scicluna seems to have implied that the criticism has been motivated by racism. I’m not sure what he’s referring to.

The criticism of Chinese investments in Malta has usually been based on strategic grounds: either because a particular sector (such as energy) is too sensitive to have a significant portion of it sold to a foreign State or because the sheer extent of investments by a foreign State (each one in itself unobjectionable) gives that State too much leverage over us when the investments are taken as a whole.

Now, that kind of criticism might possibly be mistaken but it’s not racist. It’s voicing a standard consideration.

It’s no different than voicing caution about allowing our financial services to becoming too open to Russian involvement.

Far from ignoring the bigger picture, the criticism is based on insisting on it – on seeing beyond the short-term. It’s also based on anchoring criticism on values that were repeatedly appealed to when Labour was in Opposition.

Malta’s strategic interests – which is what we’re talking about here – were often rightly mentioned by Labour.

So was opportunity cost – looking at what else you might do with a resource before deciding to use it in a particular way.

Labour’s entire case against European Union membership between 1992 and 2003 was based on the idea that, by joining, we miss out on more opportunities than we would gain.

The argument that has gained most attention in the case of the American University of Malta is about the environmental consequences. That is, in itself, an argument about how we should judge whether a project is worthwhile.

The environmental destruction of Żonqor Point has been criticised by (among others) Martin Scicluna, who is the chairman of the higher education commission, which is evaluating the AUM’s academic credibility and who clearly has no problem with the investor’s identity.

But there has also been another case made against the Żonqor Point project: once ODZ land is such a scarce resource, then you have to make sure that you give it up (if you must) to the highest bidder, not to the first comer, as in this case. Many critics would have taken a different attitude to a university at Żonqor Point had it been a world-class university (including one of the Chinese universities in that category).

Another criterion in judging validity concerns whether a company has been blacklisted. It was rightly an important issue for Labour in Opposition. Should it not be important now when Huawei – barred from competing for public contracts in several countries – is concerned?

It should go without saying that just because the media raise questions that doesn’t mean they’re right. However, the way governments – in functioning democracies – show that investments are worthwhile is by practising open government.

There is public consultation about operating values. There are transparently conducted bids to address some concerns about opportunity costs. Public contracts are published to permit informed debate. Governments address media concerns by answering their questions.

If those things don’t happen, then you’re just opening yourself up to suspicion.

In Malta’s case, even more than that has been happening.

It’s one thing to say that Huawei’s 5G testing will have intangible benefits for Malta; that is, benefits that cannot be quantified because they will have an impact on the entire economic environment. That’s a serious consideration. But was Scicluna seriously expecting journalists not to have doubts about Huawei’s actual investment when he himself couldn’t (or wouldn’t) put a number to it?

And does he seriously expect no one to voice doubts about foreign investment in the health sector when the official information on Barts’s involvement has flipped and flopped so often?

The suspicions behind the criticism might, perhaps, be baseless. But the criticism itself – which is that we’re not being given enough information to put our minds at rest – is justified.

The best way to shut up the critics would be to do what Amartya Sen urges, that is, conduct government by discussion.

Until then, the critics are doing their duty in raising questions that might, after all, prevent major errors of policy.

ranierfsadni@europe.com