J'accuse: Faulty Powers

I have decided to start writing this article midweek rather than my usual last minute rush. What prompted this midweek fervour was the blackout that part of the islands depending on Melita suffered for approximately six hours. I’ve already written about how strange it is to be able to observe the silence of an island that has been gagged with no access to the ether. The various newspapers were down and there were no comments to aggravate the development of stomach ulcers. It was so quiet that it was eerily disturbing. I had to call for reassurance and yet all lines seemed to be busy.

I felt like I had been thrown in some Stephen King novel. What if the island had suddenly been engulfed by a freak tsunami and was the 21st century version of Atlantis? What a pity that Piano had not finished his buildings yet… they would have been a nice background for some scuba diving. There was also the possibility of a terrorist sabotage – you know the kind, those who cut off the phone lines and other forms of communication before sweeping in for the kill. Was the island of Joseph and Lawrence suddenly in the hands of New Age Pirates who had had enough of boarding oil tankers and had set their eyes on a whole nation to hijack?

The dead tones of the phones and the constant “webpage does not exist” might mean that the island actually DID vanish and had magically reappeared somewhere else… maybe in the middle of the Caribbean, much to the chagrin of all the right wingers who would not have time to celebrate the ridding of the African immigrants before realising that they would face boatloads of Haitians or Cubans threatening their newly oriented shores.

What if Malta had never really existed? What if the whole business of constantly grumpy commentators and the whole menagerie of political circus freaks was just another mental joke conjured up by a tired mind after a days’ work? What if it had all been an illusion and the various projects like Piano’s Gate, Mepa reform, Electoral reform and Smartmalta had been some sick joke of the brain? Yeah… what if Smartmalta was all some kind of joke?

Hold on. Maybe it is.

Smart exchanges

There was an interesting exchange between the press, Minister Austin Gatt and SmartCity Malta CEO Claudio Grech regarding progress made and the latest developments in SmartCity. The publication of interviews with Dr Gatt and Claudio Grech were unhappy timing, coming as they did only a day after the whole communication and electrical blackout business. The press highlighted the parts that it deemed most interesting for its readers, and we got a few quotes that would probably best be left to our interpretation.

Minister Gatt reassured the public that SmartCity Malta was not in breach of its contractual obligations with the Government of Malta. He was equally eager to remind the public that the government was a minority shareholder of the whole enterprise (lest it would have been made to shoulder any responsibility I guess). Claudio Grech also seemed anxious to paint a healthy picture of the developments. One could not but wonder at the statement he had with regards to the relationship (sic) between Smart City and Mepa. I quote: “We have strong ties with Mepa and other government authorities regarding the development of SmartCity Malta. Our relationship with them is ongoing for discussions on infrastructure, roads, utilities, etc that affect SmartCity Malta.”

Interesting. The ties that bind us. What does that mean exactly? Who would boast of “strong ties” with Mepa at this time of public distrust? As if that were not enough, Claudio Grech had to downplay an earlier “political” semi-commitment made by Dr Gatt and his claim that Microsoft would be the first to settle in SCM (that’s Smart talk for SmartCity Malta). It turns out that while Microsoft had previously been touted as the possible first tenant in SCM, what it actually did do was “express a serious interest”. I’m seriously interested to see what happens next.

What SmartCity will actually become remains to be seen. Whether it will generate the 5,600 jobs that were a strong part of its selling point is a question that will eventually be answered. What is more interesting is whether the country – as a whole – politicians and all, is prepared for this kind of impact. We cut and slash into the project while ignoring the wider repercussions. Surely not all 5,600 of those jobs will go to Maltese nationals – will our reaction be rabid when we see good IT jobs go to properly qualified personnel? We cannot even leech off their earnings the way the sad, grumpy and greedy Luxembourgers do to institution employees by charging extortionate rental prices – hell we’re building their housing too!

Of course we have to wonder whether IT companies can be attracted to work in an environment where the supply of Internet and electricity is a gamble. Or will they have their own dedicated supply? Will this be in fact a ghettoisation of the IT industry and its workers, as happened in certain IT towns in India? Are the Smart employees of tomorrow the barracked soldiers of yesteryear? All of which are, as a boring old lecturer of mine would say, pleasures yet to come.

MEPA

Speaking of Mepa, it continues to be a perfect simulation exercise to uncover the twisted values of our politicians. Take the Joseph Muscat permit business. The whole quibble is that a Mepa formation of 1998 speed-tracked an application related to Joseph Muscat. Labour replied with a flurry of documents proving that, yes, it was fast, but it was within the legal framework. PN will not give in and still say that this smells of foul play.

As far as J’accuse is concerned there are two worrying corollaries to this particular business. Firstly, it should already be worrying enough that the moment a permit application is speedily dealt with we smell a rat. The irony of the situation does not seem to have struck the accusers or the accused. The second, interesting observation relates to the “power of incumbency” business. After all, Mepa in 1998 cannot possibly have been purged of its “Nationalist” mentality – two years into Alfred Sant’s not so prescient leadership. When the PN points an accusing finger at a Mepa decision during that period it forgets that this is a monster it fathered and, if it is proven right then it only goes to show that this foul monster is very, very capable of not so democratic and unaccountable questionable decisions. So… what will it be?

Still on the subject, have you seen Labour’s opposition to the removal of the Oil Depots under the bastions between Vittoriosa and Kalkara? Some people will really hang on to anything in order to create an atmosphere of complaint and distrust. For heaven’s sake, just because it was built before Dar it-Trasparenza does not necessarily mean it is nice and has to be preserved. What do we preserve next? A collection of old politicians’ underwear? If an artist in Belgium is doing it with celebrities’ underwear why not us with our crème de la crème?

Loopholes made public

The MEP candidate accounts were made public this week by the Electoral Commission (would it be too much to have them available as a downloadable PDF on the Commission website?).

I could not access the figures yet because I could not go to Evans Laboratory nor could I buy the printed version of The Times. An online summary however showed that Ms Ellul Bonici (PL) and Mr Demicoli (PN) were the only two to admit exceeding the legal limit – and by quite a bit since both hover around the E55,000 figure. There is no doubt that not having been elected to the Brussels, the two candidates in question might be accused of a “sour grapes” motivation – which is irrelevant really. At least to J’accuse it is.

The point is that there are candidates who openly admit to exceeding the legal limit while others who had similar (if not more expensive) campaigns presented incredible expense accounts that fell short of the E18,635 limit. Somebody, somewhere believes we can all be taken for a ride. Which is quite normal in most circumstances because there are people like that all over the place. In the words of the great Dr House: “Everybody lies”. What worries me is that we have a concentration of these individuals running to represent us on the basis of a list of promises (confusing as that may be) and that some of these actually got elected. True, there is a loophole, but think about it; how many politicians willing to exploit a “loophole in the law” are you willing to have represent you? What does that say about their commitment to you? See? That’s just what I meant.

We had five years of loopholes and merry-go rounds on departure taxes, hunting and more – what guarantee is there now that we will not have five more years of loophole-based representation? And a note to The Times… is the fact that Cecil-Herbert Jones claimed hair-dressing expenses really the biggest highlight of these figures? What about the loophole-based window-dressing of the other candidates?

Summer frenzy

Finally. Beyond the news. First of all an appeal for “the authorities” to do something serious about the cemetery strip of road in Bahar ic-Caghaq. How many more times will death laugh spitefully in our faces before we realise that the area is in dire need of proper traffic planning? Of course we should be doing something about the human element too. Malta remains one of the few European countries without a proper points system linked to driving licences. Introducing it might be a better incentive to more careful driving. Then again we ARE the country with the Omnibus Pool that still insures certain uninsurable maniacs who would normally not be trusted with a bicycle, let alone the lives of commuters.

A quick trip around the world shows that legislators have been tackling different aspects of life and death. In Italy the drug regulation authority OK’d the abortion pill. The pill, known as RU486, will now be available in Italy. La Stampa must have slipped when it reported that the only EU state in which it was not commercially available was Ireland. The immediate reaction from the Vatican was a threat to excommunicate any doctor prescribing it.

In the UK a debate is raging on euthanasia, or the right of persons to choose when to die. Famous people joined in the debate, which will surely spread across Europe as more and more of the ageing population will want the right to determine when they have had enough. Again… pleasures yet to come to our shores.

Meanwhile, at their annual religious meeting, the British Quakers approved same-sex marriages and would be asking the British government for permission to register such marriages in the same way as heterosexual ones. This makes the Quakers, or to call them by their official name, the Religious Society of Friends, one of the first religious organisations to approve same-sex marriages.

Whatever works

I know that the last thing you may have on your mind in summer is a visit to the cinema but I really must urge everybody to watch Woody Allen’s “Whatever Works”. Really. A masterpiece as far as I am concerned. I particularly loved the part where Yellnikoff has a tiff with the chess mother who is defending her “inchworm”, incompetent son. “I’ll have you know that my son is very intelligent”, she says. “In YOUR opinion,” he retorts, “In YOUR opinion.” Oh for a Yellnikoff in every comment box on the net…

À bien tôt.