Tag: GRTU

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Politics

Smart savings ?

smart_akkuzaHow big a pinch in government spending is €175,000 per annum? That is the figure that Education Minister Evarist Bartolo claims to be saving the public purse by removing the smart card system and transforming that portion of money into a grant going directly into the students’ purses.

There seem to be murmurs of new controls (checks and balances) on how such money is spent by students – such controls seem to have the nihil obstat of the KSU president who suggested a system of providing receipts for purchases. Sadly no one has yet mentioned how much said systems of checks and balances would cost, consequently we do not even know whether the new cost will be cheaper than the above mentioned administrative expenses that are needed to keep the smart card system in place.

Beyond the petty accounting from a government that increased the annual emoluments to its appointees by €25,000,000 last year (had to put the zeroes to give you a sense of perspective), the move to remove the smart card may have been packaged in the attractive (but deceptive) wrapping of a money saving exercise but it belies a hapless approach to the very reason of the existence of stipends (and maintenance grants, and ring-fenced expenses).

As was argued a good 16 years ago by KSU (and yes, I did form part of that KSU) every time you discuss stipends you have to be aware of why they exist. 16 years ago it was convincingly argued by the KSU before the Galdes Commission that stipends were still a necessary incentive to keep thousands of students out of the work market and in the tertiary level of education. The report we produced in 1998 is too long to summarise here but you can get a read on this link.

Now this government does not seem to be questioning the need for maintaining a system of stipends and grants. The changes were simply cosmetic based on spurious economic justifications. It is rather ironic that the KSU should be in favour of the switch away from smart cards while the GRTU expresses its disappointment. Well, not so ironic given that the main flaw of the outgoing system seems to have been the abuses by retailers who were never intended to be part of such a scheme. The idea behind smart cards was to ensure that the expenses strictly related to educational requirements of the students could be controlled. Money intended for books and stationery would not end up spent on vodka and Easter weekends in Gozo.

Nanny state? Maybe. But this was intrinsically linked with the basic policy of why stipends existed. It is easy to take the Daily Mail approach to stipends and start off your average newspaper column with a whinge about how students have it so easy and that it is about time that stipends are removed. Thatt does not mean that you have the bigger picture in mind. it just means that you are willing to ride the wave of public sentiment that is always so popular in Malta.

The truth is that stipends should form part of a wider set of targets and policies that not only effect the educational levels of our nation but also employment and development policy. Bartolo’s lame excuse of saving the equivalent of one-third of the spending on a Joseph Calleja concert is ridiculous when seen from this wider perspective. As things stand, a specific measure designed to ensure that a substantial part of the monies allocated to subsidising student autonomy in tertiary education is used for the purpose for which it was intended has been shot down with no effective replacement in sight.

Sure, the system was being abused – but rather than create a better check and punish abusers the government has chosen an easy way out that utterly compromises the whole idea of ring-fencing the student subsidy system. By saving €176,000 on an imperfect system of checks and balances, the government has now opted for no checks and balances – at least until we are told whether any new system is in place and what it entails (and how much that one will cost).

As for the KSU, they might be applauding this move enthusiastically but policy wise they should be seeing this as a heavy burden to carry next time a new debate comes up as to the necessity of stipends in this day and age. By discarding any possibility of restricting the spending to educational purposes they have also discarded one of the most convincing elements in favour of Malta’s very specific approach to tertiary education subsistence.

From MaltaToday:

The Education Minister added that students were already spending their grant in non-related educational expenses and, in this way, student would learn how to be responsible with their money.

KSU President Gayle Lynn Callus welcomed the reform but called on government to ensure checks and balances are in place on how the students spend their grant.

Also: The KSU 1999 Stipends Survey documents are available here.

 

Categories
iTech

Alert's Right of Reply

As I stated in the update to the previous post, Claudine Cassar of Alert Communications expressed her wish to make a few clarifications with regards to both the post as well as the stories circulating in the media about the launch of Trolleymania. The following is the full, unedited text of the email sent by Ms Cassar. Here at J’accuse we do not only believe in the freedom of speech but also in the right of reply. The forum is always open to whoever feels he has a point to make about anything said in this blog.

***

Hi Jacques,

Thank you for the opportunity to clarify some issues. There have been many ridiculous stories and ludicrous accusations floating around today and frankly I did not bother to reply to any of them. Your article, on the other hand, is a different story – I respect your opinion so it matters to me that there are several misconceptions that have been reproduced in your piece.

Let us start with this “e-venture capital” issue that apparently is going to send some dosh my company’s way. This is a falsehood that has been spread all over the comment boards and frankly it is getting beyond ridiculous now. The last comment I read put the figure at EUR 300,000 for a recycled project J It would be funny if it were not so sad that some people are willing to resort to spreading bare-faced lies simply because they are suffering from a very bad case of sour grapes.

Let me clarify. The portal was developed by Alert Communications and we are the ones who are bearing 90% of the costs related to development and all the costs related to hosting, maintenance and administration. We are not getting any hand-outs. We bought the servers, we are paying for the bandwidth, and we are paying the salaries for the help desk and all the technical and administrative support that we are giving our eShop operators. At the moment we are not making any dosh – we are just dishing it out!

I would be lying if I did not state clearly that my hope is in fact that in due course my company will get “a boost in custom and sales”. That is why I have invested so much time and money in this venture. I make no claims to being Mother Theresa. However it is going to take a long time to get to the point where we are going to make a profit because the running costs of this portal are very high.

The Ministry is contributing by promoting the eMall – but they are not spending anything remotely close to EUR 300,000. This is a fundamental part of such a portal’s success and there is no doubt that without their contribution, TrolleyMania would probably fail. I know, because I had already invested in the development of an eMall several years ago that failed because I simply did not have the wherewithal to promote it effectively. Is it an excellent arrangement and one that will benefit my company? Of course it is. However it must be said that this is an offer that the Government made to all of industry – it was a public call for tender and guess what, only three companies bothered to bid for it. All these companies that are now spamming the comment boards with lie upon lie did not even bother to bid when the opportunity arose, and yet they are now angry because we did bid and we were successful.

Sour grapes? Yes, definitely.

Now the GRTU issue. This requires some clarification. The GRTU wanted to give us a list of companies to black list from the mall. According to them these competitors, notwithstanding the fact that they are SMEs, are simply too competitive. They wanted us to exclude those companies that could offer Maltese consumers the best prices. Well, with all due respect, this simply does not make sense. We are no longer living in the day when Catch was the sole choccie available for me to satisfy my chocolate cravings. So TrolleyMania remains open to all Maltese SMEs who want to use it.

Is TrolleyMania a necessity for small companies in Malta to get involved in eCommerce. Well, let me put it this way. The government has launched scheme after scheme, giving away thousands of euros to SMEs who wanted to invest in such technologies – and yet the take-up was very low. The main problem is not money, it is time. Most small shop owners simply do not have the time to set up a distribution mechanism and tackle issues such as online stock management. So we did it for them – and that is why TrolleyMania is and will be a success. It is not because of the technology, there is no rocket science there! It is because we have made the whole process really easy for the merchant. Whenever a sale goes through, the merchant receives an email telling him how to pack stuff (Maltapost has weight limits per package) and automatically Maltapost gets notified and they go to the store to collect the item. We are mollycoddling these small shop owners and the result is that they have taken to the web enthusiastically.

I will not quibble with you regarding the name – some like it, some don’t. I happen to like it, so we are going to have to agree to disagree on that one J

I will however comment regarding the speed and the downtime that we experienced today. You are right, we were caught with our pants down. Not in a million years did we expect the response that we got. I am an optimistic person who really believes in this project and I came nowhere close to predicting the traffic that surged to the site!

To give you an idea, between 8pm and midnight yesterday we had 3671 unique visitors, who viewed a grand total of 115,600 pages – that means an average of 917 visits an hour, with each visitor viewing 31.5 pages per visit i.e. a total of 28885 page views per hour. This morning the figures were even higher than that.

Were we prepared for this onslaught? No, we were not. It was like the crazy rush at Lidl when chainsaws are for sale for €5.00 J In our case, however, the stampede did not calm down after half an hour, it just kept going on, hour after hour after hour, as people searched and registered and purchased stuff – until finally the server konked out.

So this morning we had no choice but to switch off the server, regroup and upgrade. It took us a few hours to sort the matter out because we changed hardware, upgraded bandwidth levels, etc. However the site was online again by around 4pm. Incredibly the stampede started again and is still ongoing! However now we are prepared and the site can take it.

Bring it on say I J

Claudine Cassar
Managing Director

Categories
Articles

J'accuse: Stable government and its price

So David Cameron got to move to number 10 after all. With a little help from his new-found friends, Cameron (and Clegg) ushered in an era of “collaborative politics” that promises to combine effective representation with reasoned administration for the greater good of the people. The much-maligned monster that is coalition government settled in and is already working on an Emergency Budget to tackle the continuing ails of the economy (British, European and worldwide). And there we were thinking that pesky third parties would ruin the show.

When the pros and cons of coalition governments are being discussed, the question of stable government always figures as one of primary concern. The fear of government breaking down or collapsing mid-term and of provoking multiple elections over short spans of time have been one of the main arguments against the possibility of coalition governments – that and the ugly duckling of a “kingmaker” party – a minor party able to call the shots on who gets to form a government.

Whenever such considerations are made we are making implied choices between stronger representation and stable government. The implication seems to be that perfect, proportional representation is not conducive to stable government. In a way that is because, given our “black or white” bipartisan all-or-nothing approach, we are automatically suspicious of compromise politics and confidence building. But is our “stable government” system really so perfect after all?

Stable or bust

Speaking to the party faithful at the PN General Council on Friday, minister Tonio Borg reassured those present that “the government will be safeguarding the people’s clear verdict given in the general election two years ago which was for the Nationalist Party to govern the country for five years.” This was Tonio’s summary refusal of the PL thesis of a government hanging onto power by its talons. Forget Auditor General investigations, forget disquisitions on Erskine-May and forget companies with ugly acronyms like BWSC.

It’s all about who is in power for five years. The reverse side of the coin is the same. Look at the fracas in parliament – the yelling, the motions, counter-motions, the childish insults and defences (you’re drunk and she’s pregnant – oh the shame) – it all boils down to one thing and one thing only: the PL wanted so desperately to bring this one seat-majority government crumbling down (on a vote which technically does not do that) and to undermine whatever sense of legitimacy GonziPN still has to govern.

gonzidhondt

When the results of the last election were out, our Bertoon had Gonzi celebrating on a small bucket representing his “relative majority”. A party that garnered less than 50 per cent of the vote in the country would govern, thanks to a constitutional mechanism of seat compensation. Our caption read: “D’hondt worry, we’re happy” – a nod to the D’hondt system of calculation in elections – invented by a Belgian (Belgian? now that’s a sure source for stable governments). The toon was our way of saying “at least someone’s happy”. Sure. GonziPN had every right to be happy as the next legitimate government of the nation, having snatched victory from the jaws of defeat. But was the voter really getting a good deal in constitutional and representative terms?

The cost of ‘stable government’

Two years ago a party that had a 1,500 vote advantage over the next party that had failed to get to the 50 per cent threshold could claim two extra seats in “constitutional compensation”. Those two extra seats (voting value approximately 7,000) are given to the party with the relative majority in order to ensure that it can govern for the next five or so years – assuming that all the members on its side of the House will vote in its favour.

So we have constructed our “stable government” around a fictive majority that in effect exercises something akin to absolute legislative power in parliament. If government wills it, anything becomes law – unless its bench members decide (knowingly or out of fatigue) to vote against it. The Opposition may – rightly or wrongly – yell, cry, perform its least flattering resurrection of 80’s parliamentary thuggery, walk out in indignation and shout “foul” to an angry nation. It may do all that and more but, barring a revolution, the government is as firmly in place as a limpet – crisis averted, n’est-ce pas?

There is no coalition partner forced upon a party that has not obtained the majority of national votes. No coalition partner to act as a moderator of the more radical of the government policies that might only have enjoyed the favour of a national minority (relative majority it well may be, but it is still a government by national minority). The closest we can get to the coalition partner scenario is in the infamous “rebel backbenchers” picture where, for reasons that can be highly volatile (not as clear as those of an elected coalition partner), a fraction of the party in government decides to make use of his newfound disproportionate weight.

I don’t know about you but if that’s stability, then give me instability any day. Not that I would want instability, but this kind of conundrum really makes the examination of an alternative scenario with coalition partner worth revisiting. AD chairman Mike Briguglio wrote of the current state of affairs in an article that also appeared in J’accuse (Symbol of a Stagnated Duopoly). At one point Mike suggests that the Nationalist Party might even pull off a victory at the next general election. What then?

Mike wrote: “The Nationalists can save their day if the economy recovers, yet, if in government alone, in the next election, we can only expect more arrogance, disregard for the environment, confessional politics and a lack of civil liberties and social rights.” The “if in government alone” bit did not escape me. It is obvious that AD of all parties would entertain thoughts of coalitions in Clegg style and Briguglio’s message is clear – if the Nationalists were to be part of the next government it would best be with a check and balance system guaranteed by a coalition partner.

bert4j_100516
Cleggmania?

The problem in Malta is that voters will weigh this option with the usual suspicion. Elections are depicted as an all or nothing battle themselves. The rules are such that – as I have shown – the trophy of governance is intricately merged with the trophy of absolute power at all costs. Even in such telling times as these, when the bipartisan representation exposes all its ugly warts, messengers like Briguglio will find it incredibly hard to sell the idea of a different form of “collaborative government” that has just been launched in the UK. Selling the idea might not be enough – without electoral reform, laws on party financing and a clear awareness among the voting population, we are far, very far, from being anywhere near the kind of movement that brought the UK Cleggmania.

Meanwhile the BWSC saga with all the parliamentary repercussions rolls on. Joseph Muscat of the Same, Same but Different Party has just presented his 15 points to battle corruption. The monster, once defined, failed to bring the PN government down. So now Don Quixote invents a few swords and sabres and bandies them about. We shall see how gullible the voters can be by the way they accept this new set of “promises”. In our analysis of the 15 points on the blog we point out (among other things) that:

(a) promising a working electricity system is just the mediocre kind of electoral gimmick you can expect from our bipartisan stable system in the 21st century; (b) you cannot fight corruption if you are unable to define it legally; (c) there is no such thing as retroactive application of criminal law; (d) when Joseph Muscat promises to implement a directive he is stating the obvious – he will have to implement directives when in government whether he likes it or not; and (e) a law on party financing must not be limited to “corruption” whatever that means – transparency means knowing even what are the “legitimate” sources of party funds.

Somebody stabilise that euro

I know it’s egoistic of me but I have begun to notice that ever since I booked a June trip to New York, there seems to be a general conspiracy to threaten my holiday. As if Iceland’s bucolic volcano and its random outbursts of paralytic ash were not enough, the combined effect of Greek woes and economic disaster on the continent have daily gnawed away at the purchasing power of the beloved euro, once I cross the pond to the other side. Also, if you please, those bigoted maniacs that fabricate religious excuses at the same rate as they strap bombs to their chests have upped the ante once again in the city that never sleeps.

Conspiracy or no conspiracy, I have “New York or Burst” (as Balki Bartokamous would have it) tattooed on my brain. No volcano, euro devaluation or fanatic terrorist will come between me and the joys of the 24-hour Apple Store on Fifth Avenue – open 24/365… beat that GRTU! How’s that for stable determination?

www.akkuza.com has been on a go-slow this Ascension Long Weekend in Luxembourg. We’ll be discussing stable governments all next week so do not miss out on the action.

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Categories
Politics

May Day May Day

So the government has rejected the request for shops to open on Workers’ Day. Spokespersons for the ministry of finance said that circumstances were not extraordinary such as to warrant allowing shops to stay open.

I’m missing something here. What is the principle behind whether or not shops open on a particular day? Whether it is a Sunday or public holiday that we are talking about I am genuinely asking whether the government can put its finger on one particular principle.

Apparently an exception was made previously on Freedom Day (March 31st) when shops had been allowed to open. March 31st happened to be a Wednesday that fell two days before Good Friday. So one can assume that the reasoning was that with March 31 thrown in and with Good Friday being another closed shop day there would be too much shopping deprivation in one week (considering of course that this includes Sunday so technically three days on seven would be serious deprivation for shopaholics).

How does that principle work though? The GRTU argued that keeping shops closed on Workers’ Day (a Saturday) would mean two consecutive days of shoplessness. Has this therefore has become the standard measure?

To my mind the main concern with whether or not shops open on Sundays and Public Holidays are the workers themselves. In countries like France and the UK where the debate raged until the common sense free market approach (yes, I am biased) prevailed that was the main question.

The problem I have here is that the government (in this case the proto-conservative PN) gives the impression of having a problem with free choice. Times have moved on and many countries have Sunday (and Bank Holiday) opening hours for certain establishments. I would prefer to have a more clear decision on the issue – one that is not twisted by undecipherable exceptions.

So. Are you a pro-open all hours or do you too want a commerce free day?