When a hotelier is reported to have lost his cool at a meeting of the Malta Council for Economic and Social Development, he may or may not have drawn the sympathy of the rest of the council members but he can rest assured that his complaint went down well with people outside the council.
All too often, the country is spending far more time understanding, dissecting and analysing difficulties than trying to find solutions or thinking outside the box to grapple with problems.
It would, at times, appear that Malta is stuck in difficult situations when, with some flair and imagination, these can be resolved.
The acting president of the Malta Hotels and Restaurants Association, Tony Zahra, lost his cool when, half-way through an MCESD meeting called to discuss the European Commission’s country-specific recommendations, he blurted out: “We’ve been sitting here for an hour and all we’ve heard are the problems. We know what the problems are, give us the solutions.”
To which Helena Dalli, acting very appropriately in her capacity as Social Dialogue Minister, attempted to calm him down. It is not known to what extent the council then proceeded to discuss the solutions, if any, to the problems raised by the European Commission in its recommendations. In any case, it is unlikely that the public will be getting any feedback as MCESD council meetings are closed to the press, who are usually only permitted to cover the opening.
In this day and age, this is an anachronism. Considering the importance the council ought to have in the country’s development, its meetings should be open to the press so that the public know what is going on. If even parliamentary sessions are televised today, there is no reason why a council such as the MCESD should hold meetings behind closed doors. It simply does not make sense.
Mr Zahra had good reason to vent his frustration but, to be fair, the kind of problems raised in the country-specific recommendations made in the Commission’s country report cannot be solved overnight. However, progress in work towards their solution can certainly be speeded up.
In fact, in at least seven areas, only limited progress is reported to have been made in work meant to meet the recommendations. These are: tax compliance; health system; apprenticeship scheme; school leaving; female labour market participation; diversification of the energy mix; and debt financing of companies. Only limited progress is reported to have been made in pension system reform and the judicial system.
On the other hand, Malta has fully addressed a recommendation on the fiscal framework through the enactment of the Fiscal Responsibility Act.
Substantial progress has also been made in cutting public procurement procedures, from 191 days in 2013 to 115 days last year. The reduction has been brought about through the introduction of mandatory e-procurement. The Commission believes that the additional administrative capacity should consolidate the gains and reduce the duration of the procedure a bit further, thereby bringing Malta close to the EU average.
As to the diversification of the energy mix, the interconnector has now been laid and it is already being used. But it is as yet unclear as to whether the consortium building the gas-fired power pant will be able to complete the project by the new deadline, that is, June next year.
Time will tell how long it will take for Malta to make more tangible progress in following the rest of the recommendations made by Brussels.