The political situation in Malta has reached a deplorable state. Today’s reality is clouded by infighting within the party in government. This situation has got to stop immediately.

In the circumstances, both political parties need to cool down considerably. The hysterical attitude within the parties is damaging Malta’s image abroad and sowing a sense of instability, which we do not need.

First of all the Prime Minister has got to forget himself and his party and portray the real situation in Malta. The mountain of debt hanging over our heads is very worrying. It is time that he persuades his ministers to stop spending millions of euros in order to impress the people and garner their forthcoming election votes.

This is not the way to do politics. Look at what happened to five of the EU members, Greece, Spain, Portugal, Ireland and, now, also Cyprus. What more examples do we need to convince us that the way we have acted since 1992 leads to bankruptcy?

Both political parties are vying with each other to offer everything free to everyone. We all know that this is impossible to achieve, whoever is in government next. We have been budgeting a deficit for many years now and if we keep promising everyone a free ride everywhere we shall finish up in the same kettle as the EU partners mentioned above.

We need to take corrective measures to rectify our budget.

We need to clamp down on tax evasion, especially in the black economy which is rampant in Malta and most of all Gozo. Nothing is being done to collect income tax except from the salaried employee. And, even here, not all wages and salaries are declared.

We need to clamp down on VAT. The scandals we had in this department seem to me to be the tip of the iceberg.

The department seems to condone irregularities as if they were slight when, in fact, there were millions of euros involved. In Gozo, VAT is a dirty word. Even in big supermarkets, if you ask for a VAT receipt with the customer’s VAT number they claim they do not know how to do it.

We need to do something about the free health care, which has become very expensive and no longer sustainable. Charges should start to be levied on hospital care for those patients that can afford the expense.

We need to cut down on free medicine for citizens that can afford to buy their own medication. It is ironic to see a millionaire in the queue for free medicine. I have witnessed this myself.

The politicians should show some economica sense… transport, mobile phones, parties, private planes darting here and there… these are costing the taxpayer hard-earned money that we can ill afford.

Politicians abroad richer than us have cut their salaries to give an example. Yet, even local councils, taking the cue from the Nationalist Party, spend money like water and we even had a mayor being overpaid €5,000, which he refuses to refund. If this is not arrogance then what is it? Action should be taken by the police if the minister refuses to proceed.

The politicians should stop thinking of themselves for a change, drop their arrogance and eat humble pie like many thousands of citizens are doing because they have no choice. There is no time to lose. The election is close and the people will have their pound of flesh soon. The rebels in Parliament are a clear example.