A political party in government is bound to lose touch with the grassroots as it grapples with the affairs of State. Joseph Muscat’s Labour Party may well argue it has not but, despite its well choreographed Gvern li jisma’ consultation meetings, the indications are that if it is not losing touch it is not being sensitive enough to the people’s concerns.
Take the arrogant manner in which it has dealt with the Panama Papers reports involving a Cabinet minister and the Prime Minister’s chief of staff.
Public sentiment in this case is one of anger but the government, still thinking that the huge majority it won in 2013 entitles it to govern with a greater leeway than it would have otherwise been the case had it won with a slim majority, plods on as if nothing has happened.
Prime Minister Joseph Muscat seems to be trying, not altogether unsuccessfully, it must be noted, to tell the people what they should worry about.
He has now decided, for example, that rising house rents have replaced utility bills as a concern for low-income earners. A working group has been duly appointed to find out exactly how big is the problem of rising house rents and to suggest how it can be tackled.
That may very well be a concern but there are other, equally sharp concerns affecting low-income earners, such as, to mention just two, the price of food and the still high price of petrol at the pump despite the sharp fall in the cost of oil.
Dr Muscat has said the government is not keen to intervene in the rental market and that the aim is to see how it can help those who could not afford the higher rents.
While this is admirable, the net ought to be widened further to include not just this class of people but also the large number of pensioners who are seeing their pension pot being fast eroded by the sharp decline in interest rates on their savings.
Putting his comments into context, the Prime Minister said that when Caritas gave the Cabinet an overview of its report on a minimum wage for a decent living it remarked that, until a few years ago, poor people used to approach it for help over water and electricity bills. Now, he said, they were approaching it over problems linked to rising rents.
The Caritas report sparked a great deal of heated discussion when it was released some weeks ago and even the President pitched in, calling for a bailout for those living in poverty.
Backing its call for a rise in the minimum wage, Caritas said the yearly necessary budget for a family consisting of two parents and two children to live decently was found to amount to €11,446. In deciding to look into the issue of rising house rents, the government appears to have taken the cue from that part of the Caritas report, which said the government needed to tackle the financial situation of low-income earners who were renting private dwellings and not benefitting from subsidies.
Caritas indicated other ways in which the government can help people caught in the poverty trap. Besides looking into the needs of this segment of the community, it is essential not to neglect the plight of pensioners who, although they may not be on the poverty line, are finding it increasingly difficult to make ends meet.
As a practical suggestion, how about reducing the withholding tax on their investments?