Few may have an appetite for any discussion on the next budget in the sizzling heat of August but Finance Minister Edward Scicluna kept his appointment with the social partners within the Malta Council for Economic and Social Development a few days ago to keep them abreast of the government’s thinking.
Judging by what has been officially said so far, one of the main targets will be a revamp of the infrastructure. However, besides the launching of an ambitious roadworks programme, it is not yet clear what the administration has in mind.
At his meeting with the social partners, the minister said it was in the government’s interest to invest in the country’s infrastructure as this was an investment that yielded growth, a classical truism that is, ironically, often neglected.
Most roads, for example, have been left to deteriorate to Third World-class standard, if not worse. According to one report of the minister’s speech, Prof. Scicluna said that, while the government had taken steps to ensure that the economy continued to grow, infrastructure was failing to keep up. Expanding on the truism, he said this would cause “breakages” within the economy.
If some key parts of the infrastructure are failing to keep up, as indeed they have been for some years, it only shows lack of the government’s foresight and, definitely, poor planning. Why did the government wait so long to wake up to the reality that the roads are in a disastrous state? The official answer from Castille would likely be that the government had other priorities to tackle first, like measures aimed at creating jobs and ensure enough power supply.
With the coming on stream of the interconnector and the generation capacity already available, the Nationalist Party had good reason to contest the second reason. While Prof. Scicluna talked in measured terms when he stressed the need for an infrastructural revamp, Prime Minister Joseph Muscat is talking really big, as is his wont, going so far as saying that “following the sterling work to create jobs and increase pensions, we are now making Malta future-proof”.
Labour’s main aim in this legislature, he said, was being a step ahead in terms of policies and infrastructural projects. Future-proof means anticipating the future and minimising the shocks of future events, a most hazardous exercise, at best, often beset by the unknown as shown only too well by the 2008 financial crisis. Few, if any, things in life are future-proof.
It would appear that it is only now that the Labour government has fully realised the importance of ensuring that the infrastructure keeps pace with development. Well, it is better late than never and, hopefully, some tangible results will begin to show for all the game-changing (another favourite buzzword of the Prime Minister) projects thought up by Dr Muscat.
The elephant in the room is the unacceptable state of the general environment, with neglect and degradation scarring the face of Malta. A serious, full-blown attempt aimed at reversing this deplorable trend ought to take priority in any long-term programme to revamp the infrastructure.
More than self-praise, flights of fancy and buzzwords, the country needs to get to grips with key infrastructural problems that have been staring the country in the face for years.