The government seems to want us to ignore Moody’s downgrading of government bond ratings and the revision of the economic outlook to negative. This is because it doesn’t match its narrative.

...the Prime Minister threw parsimony out of the window where it concerned him and his own- Helena Dalli

While running on empty, Nationalist Party slogans like “finanzi fis-sod” (sound finances) and “par idejn sodi” (a pair of steady hands) sound even more vacuous than they did at the time they were coined. Nothing more than election catchphrases which continue to be a joke. What is not funny is that the government has so few ideas and strategies on how to get the country out of the current predicaments.

We now hear talk about spending restraint when we have had decades of spending beyond our means.

Observing what is happening to our Mediterranean neighbours is no consolation. Neither is remembering a PN Finance Minister famously saying that it will be up to our children and grandchildren to find ways to pay up. All that is catching up on us.

Somehow, the present Minister of Finance’s feathers don’t seem to have been ruffled. When I read what he had to say about this Moody’s downgrade and negative outlook matter it caught my eye so sharply I could have sued for physical damages. The rating was not on the government but on the state of the country, he declared. And who, pray, has captained the country to its present situation?

Isn’t it the government that must provide the framework, as was done in the financial services area, for instance? Is it not the government that must create a good climate for investors? To help increase efficiency? To minimise government bureaucracy, which continues to weigh investors down and eat away at our competitiveness? Wasn’t it the government’s decision to skyrocket utility costs? True, the price of oil has gone up but that is only part of the story. We also know that the inefficiency at Enemalta has not been tackled and we have been forever paying for this gross mismanagement. Doesn’t all this impinge on investment, a major critique in the Moody’s report?

This negligence can be seen in many areas of policy. For instance, it was only last Thursday that the Permanent Residency Scheme was reactivated. The scheme was discontinued because, we were told, someone abused the system but that was last December. Did it have to take the government nine months to amend and make new regulations?

Every time we asked, they would say “we are studying the matter”. Charles Mangion and Roderick Galdes even presented a motion to Parliament on the issue last March, which was discussed in June. But still more months had to pass...

In the meantime, deeds were aborted and business was lost and, obviously, new contracts could not be made.

Malta’s reputation in this sector suffered a severe blow because of the government’s procrastination. So much so that Malta was off the radar this year for international agencies of retirement retreats.

This is an area of business within the construction and real estate sector that contributed over €600 million to the GDP last year, equivalent to 5.6 per cent of the economic growth. About 13,000 workers are directly employed here.

Apart from being an opportunity for earning the country foreign currency, there is also a chain of other jobs involved indirectly, such as those of turnkey contractors, furnishings suppliers, cleaners...

This is but another example where the government did not do its utmost when it could easily have done so.

And here we are, forming part of the group of EU economic laggards, with the possibility of further downgrading – if the government doesn’t pull up its socks with regard its public finance performance. This is a far cry from the pretty picture the government’s and the PN’s propaganda machines try to paint.

In the meantime, the government keeps blaming all, external and internal forces, but refuses to look in the mirror.

Last year, the Finance Minister wrote a piece in this newspaper titled Vision 2015 – Make It Happen: “Vision 2015 is not an end in itself. It is about establishing the next lap in our journey... We have established seven sectors in which we have the potential to excel and achieve and build our uniqueness.”

What has become of this vision? The government spends most of its time fighting the backlash from its ill-thought policies, especially those with regard to bad governance (Enemalta mismanagement and concomitant exorbitant utilities rates, a power station contract with agents involved saying they can speak to people at the top echelons of the government, the public transport circus... to name a few).

On the personal front then, the Prime Minister wasted a lot of time and energy in order to try to assuage – albeit unsuccessfully – the effect which throwing our money at an internal parliamentary group problem had on taxpayers. Then, giving himself and his Cabinet an extra €500 a week made the Prime Minister and his ministers even more vulnerable to criticism coming from all segments and levels of society.

It is incredible how, at the same moment that people have been geared to austerity mode, the Prime Minister threw parsimony out of the window where it concerned him and his own.

helenadalli@gmail.com

Dr Dalli is shadow minister for the public service, government investments and gender equality.