Tag: Labour

Categories
COVID-19

Monetizing Disasters the Labour Way

Minister Clayton Bartolo is not having a good week at the office. The tourism sector for which he is responsible is the playing ground for a huge dilemma that pits two different priorities of a nation against each other. On the one hand, the sector depends heavily on the free movement of persons into the island – an economic priority of the first order. No tourists means no money to go round. On the other hand, the current resurge of the pandemic menas that measures need to be taken to protect the citizens of Malta from another dangerous wave.

Health vs Economy should be a no-brainer. In his interviews the Minister repeatedly uses keywords such as “caution” and “responsibility”. Each time he is forced to toe the fine line between encouraging the tourist sector’s economy and reassuring the rest of the nation that all steps are taken in a way not to imperil the health of the residents of the island. As we watch the story unfold it is not always so straightforward. The rush to reopen the tourist sector, especialy the language schools, has had some negative results that may be even more painful in the long-term.

Take for example the case of the stranded and quarantined students. Malta’s language school sector has taken a definitive negative blow in Italy with the coverage of the quarantine conditions that the Italian students have been obliged to live in. Have a look at the title of this article on La Stampa which I am sure disgraced former PM Joseph Muscat would love to read:

Coronavirus, Dubai non è come Malta. Lo studente bloccato: “Assistiti da medici e infermieri. Per i miei 18 anni una torta dal ministero della Salute”

(La Stampa)

Lovely no? Malta is now the reference point on the negative end of the scale. Insofar as dealing with the pandemic is concerned, we have moved from top of the class in Europe to being the bad example that no one wishes to emulate. Incidentally, you would have thought that with all the talk the tourism sector has going about its importance they would have mobilized their resources better in order to avoid this kind of situation.

Labour’s rush to capitalise on the UK’s green-lighting of Malta was symptomatic on the eagerness to monetize as quickly as possible and make up for lost time. Disguised in terms of “assisting recovery” of affected sectors, such decisions are clearly a result of a twisted outlook that is not new in Labour’s vocabulary. This outlook is based on an unprincipled money-based approach to monetize on any disastrous situation.

Back in 2011 a Joseph Muscat in opposition would speak of the advantages that would accrue to Malta thanks to the instability in North Africa following the Arab Spring. At the time I had commented:

” … there is something wrong when a progressive politician suggests taking advantage of the Arab Spring to boost national tourism. It gets worse when the same politician lauds Italy’s heavy-handed nationalism on the matter of immigration.”

Pulse, J’accuse on the Malta Independent on Sunday

The Labour party approach to international disasters or events is as unprincipled as it is ruthless. Again back in 2011 George Vella (now President, then aspirant foreign minister) saw the troubles in Libya as a possible boon for Malta since they could end up solving the immigration problem once, as George Vella put it, Libya became a Dubai in the Mediterranean attracting investment (see Labour Loves Libya on J’accuse in August 2011). Now if you set aside the inconsistencies between Muscat’s hopes of attracting that investment rerouted away from a troubled North Africa and Vella’s hope that the investment (and the immigrants) goes to Libya instead you find the bottom line: Malta gaining economically on the back of other disasters.

The problem with the pandemic is that turning Malta into an economic hyena also risks damaging irreparably our reputation in particular sectors while also aggravating the health situation on the island. As the saying goes: Prosit Minestri.

Categories
Corruption

The truth about convenience

truth_akkuza

Saviour Balzan’s performance at yesterday’s Public Accounts Committee must have been a sight for sore eyes and Lord do we have sore eyes on the island. In many ways Balzan has become the champion of all the “hekk hu go fik” stalwarts who will never get enough of (as Ian Borg put it) getting an orgasm out of imagining worse places in their hell that would be reserved for what is left of GonziPN. Part of the reason may very well be that more often than not Balzan gives the impression that he operates on the very kind of substance that fuels (excuse the pun) this kind of voter.

Of course your average voter has every prerogative to elect to vote on the basis of partisan zeal, inbuilt prejudice and repressed anger. The urge to wave the flag in the face of opponents and yell about some tkaxkira is also a prerogative protected by the constitution and the right to universal suffrage. Yes, we are doomed to have the fate of our nation determined by the insufferable partisan who will go on weighing the aptitude of a party to govern not by its potential but by contrasting it to what is perceived as the virulent other.

Not Saviour though, he is a public person as in he is an editor of what for all intents and purposes is a newspaper. Yesterday Owen “the law” Bonnici kick started the waltz of connivance with this “editor” with what he called a “preambolu” (preamble). He informed all and sundry that as the editor of a paper Balzan would not be obliged to divulge his sources. True. Very true. Also redundant. It was just Bonnici’s way of tucking Balzan comfortably in his seat short of providing tea and biscuits and a nice warm cover. I switched off the radio at that point and have the various newspaper reports to go on for what happened after.

First a preamble of my own. What follows will surely provide the various sycophants of the Taghna Lkoll litter to call this blog a “nationalist blog” or a “poison pen” (though we may be older and wiser as a blog but not as important in the machinery and cogs of the system). Experience has shown that worrying about this form of accusation is like worrying that it is raining: best to put on a good waterproof jacket and not get mixed up in the mud that inevitably forms. Let the future be my judge.

Speaking of judges, that was the first impression that Balzan’s deposition seems to give: Judge Balzan was in court. Comfortably seated and welcomed by Bonnici he dispensed opinions as though they were edicts from a judicial platform. “George Farrugia should have been tried in court.” “Lawrence Gonzi lied.” “Tancred Tabone was a scapegoat.” “Tancred Tabone might have been Austin Gatt’s cousin”. In what he probably believes to have been his finest moment he spun and linked story after story, confident in the fact that “his sources are protected” to lead to the culminating “bombshell” (not my words, but one of the papers chose this term). The Shell out of court settlement with the PN government as compensation for having missed out on some tenders. The big news? Simon Busuttil was the lawyer for Shell.

Now, not having the benefit of Balzan’s disgruntled sources (I will assume you can see that for yourself – the disgruntled bit I mean) I can still try to piece together the “facts” provided by Balzan and ask a few honest questions.

  1. There seems to be sufficient evidence pointing to a network of information that led to a skewered oil procurement policy that took place under a nationalist government watch. So far so good. We did not even need Balzan to see that far.
  2. The conflicting evidence as to who was in it up to his teeth and who was not seems to arise from the fact that it all depends on who you accept as source. Would it be George Farrugia the whistleblower? Would it be the Farrugia brothers who according to Balzan’s song were approached as whistleblowers but later dropped in favour of their brother?
  3. Light bulb – as Gru would say. Could it be that those who are now claiming to be victims and unwanted whistleblowers have found a place to vent their side of the story in Balzan?
  4. Could it be that the convenience of these internecine wars and shady suspicions falls right in the lap of Bonnici’s Labour – happy enough to tag along with any mud that is thrown inter partes so long as some of it can be made to sound like it sticks to GonziPN?
  5. And in the light of 4 above, what better manna from heaven than a non-sequitur about a retainer held by the current leader of the nationalist party for an oil company with regards to an out of court settlement related to procurement of AVIATION FUEL that has nothing to do with the procurement of Farrugia’s oil? The important thing for Bonnici and his party is that Busuttil’s name was finally dropped in the context of the Oil Procurement scandal – no matter how vaguely. For the man in the street busily “orgasming” (Ian Borg again) on the GonziPN links this must be heaven. For Muscat a welcome distraction from GaffarenaGate, ChinaGate, ChrisCardonaGate, PremierGate, ODZGate, SandroChetcutiGatesandTowers… heavens where do I stop?
  6. Then there was that bit of magic about Gonzi lying that he did not know Farrugia’s wife – because he regularly received chain prayers from her. Which of course would make me best friends with most Nigerians who insist on trying to send me money at every opportunity they get. The Prime Minister passed on whatever information was received to the secret services but apparently, according to Judge Balzan, they went about their work maladroitly. Of course that should raise questions about the secret service, the police and more but we are not in the PAC for that are we? We need to find mud that sticks.
  7. Finally there’s Austin Gatt. Never a beloved minister. Neither he nor his minions and now MPs were ever going to be seen in a good light of even the most moderate of PN supporters let alone the “hekk hu go fik” brigade. It gets a bit confusing because at one point Tancred Tabone is highlighted as being both the “scapegoat” of the situation as well as the (possible) cousin of the minister. Claudio Grech is guilty of arrogance – I wonder if it is of the same type that we get whenever PM Muscat gets asked an uncomfortable question.

There are worrying implications that result from the Oil Procurement Scandal. In my opinion the most worrying of all the things that Balzan implied yesterday was in fact the weather-vane approach adopted by the police depending on who is in government. That something was definitely amiss in the oil  procurement methods is not hard to deduce. That it is all being lost in a desperate attempt by the government and people bearing grudges against Gonzi’s PN (and now the current PN) to change this into an anti-PN crusade is shameful to say the least.

Our class of politicians – all of it – is what we have as representatives. They are obliged to perform their representative duties in full respect of the mechanisms of democracy, particularly by ensuring that the guarantees of constitutional checks and balances are strong and fully functional. The PN’s efforts at changing and morphing into a party that has left behind the malaise of GonziPN must stick within these parameters. Labour has by now shown clearly that it has no intention to follow the rules of the accountability game.

Moments of “glory” such as these for Saviour Balzan will go down well with the Taghna Lkoll crowd. His convenient (though mostly irrelevant) name dropping will be applauded in most circles. Such moments will do close to nothing to further the cause of solving the problem of corruption that has been clawing at the heart of our system under bipartisan blessing. Worse still they will do nothing at all to open the eyes of the people to the rampant corruption that is taking place daily before their eyes.

So long as the Pied Piper can play the tune….and it seems that it’s an LP… a 10 year tune in fact.

 

 

Categories
Politics

The Road to Perdition

perdition_akkuza

One of the most repeated mantras under the last administration was that it was too arrogant. Arrogance had become the byword for Muscat’s opposition, stirring up the people’s hatred and chips until they could take no more. One would expect that after two years of Labour government we would have anything but an arrogant government.

Not. Joseph “What is all the fuss?” Muscat is on track to break all negative records even in this department. This would already be worrying were it not for another not too insignificant detail. The real problem is that Muscat’s arrogance is directly related to one of the most basic tenets of liberal democracy – the right to property and its enjoyment. In this field Muscat has run rampage like no other before him managing to begin to belittle the feats of his hero Mintoff.

Public property is anything but something that is intended for the general enjoyment of the people. In Muscat’s eyes it is there to be raped and sold to the shadiest investor. From Zonqor to Qala the alarum bells are ringing while the Prima Donna in Castille gives us the modern day version of Marie Antoinette with his “Let them eat cake” being the “What is all this fuss?” His cabinet of incompetents can only just back him up in this tyrannic saunter through the res publica – most of them have vested interests in some jaunt or other whether it is strip clubs or property to be developed.

“Qieghdin sew” is an expression that offers meagre consolation. This morning we woke up to the news that through some wheeling and dealing of government sponsored expropriation another individual managed to make quite a few euros. Arrogance? Expropriation – the word of tyranniesthat evokes the ghost of South American socialist (read fascists in disguise) manouevres. So a couple of farmers own the land where Muscat wants to make a cheap sell to place a scam university? No problem – we will move them around because their land is in the way.

The laws that are supposed to be in place to safeguard these democratic basics such as the right to enjoyment of property and the protection of the res publica are also in danger of being rendered useless. This governmenthas become the masterind of the watering down of our legal system. It creeated a momentary illusion of competence by introducing haphazard laws granting social rights. That was the equivalent of the opium for the general public. All too peased for having obtained the long awaited rights by hook or by crook (mostly by crook and false promises) they rushed to anoint the law-maker as expert. Anyone criticising these laws as patchwork that fails to fall within the lines of a general social project would quickly be branded a conservative defender of the fools who for too long ignored the signs of change.

The institutional set-up that should help with legal safeguards is long eroded. MEPA and its likes are full of upstart proto-philosophers busy licking the arses of those in power hoping to get a piece of the cake even if such piece only means a bit of verbal recognition every now and then as well as a keen following of blind minions. The courts are gradually succumbing to a nomination game that is all but neutral and threatens the pilars of separation of power. And all the while the chips on the shoulder against the old, arrogant PN (GonziPN?) are proving to be resilient.

We could blame the arrogance of the former guise of PN that brought us into this mess. We could continue to whinge about how the former government lacked ears to listen. Some among us could even bask in the short-lived sunlight of “I told you so” smugness. All the while though the nation is being dragged into undemocratic ignominy by a far worse adversary than has ever been seen before.

It is time for some people to set their pride away and invest in practical options to bring about change as quickly as is possible. Even if that means holding their noses and backing a party they believed they would never back.

It’s imperative that they realise this now. The future of the nation is in balance and they will have much to answer for if they do not realise it.

 

Categories
Politics

Labour’s Bullshit Factory

bullshit_akkuzaThere’s no two ways about it. The only quirk in the Grand Theory of Labour’s Bullshit Factory is that Muscat seems to be resiliently surviving in the popularity stakes. The people still hang on to whatever fairy dust he can throw at them – and from the looks of it there is not much left. Labour supposedly had a well-oiled machine in the run up to the election. I say supposedly since no matter how many plaudits can be wasted on their “achievement” it still boils down to a PR stunt so big that one can only blame the gullible for having fallen for it hook, line and sinker. It did rely muchly on the idea that twenty-five years of nationalist government had given rise to much corruption and fit in nicely with the average Maltese voters penchant for martyrdom and self-pity that puts the Secret Policeman’s Ball to shame.

Two years into Labour government and when the words and charades fell apart we have a government that is mired in its own bullshit. We may have a 58c COLA increase but there are innumerable cheques that cannot be cashed (and I am not talking about the salaries given to the friends and friends of friends of taghnalkoll meritocracy dudes but about promises unfulfilled): Take Minister Joe Mizzi and his latest revelation that the public transport subsidy will have to rise to 23 million euros. It makes Manuel Delia’s fiasco suddenly look like a Nobel Prize Achievement. Not just that. This particular purveyor of champagne socialist bull has the gall to refuse to explain what effect this will have on the tariffs for the normal gentry who rely on such transport. Those who don’t (rely on such transport) have just been told that many of the roads they patronise (as in patrons) daily will be shut for works – presumably to be inaugurated in a couple of years’ time by a beaming Minister.

So Arriva was not THAT bad after all was it? Bar a few questionable choices regarding the use of bendy buses it seemed to work quite well. Turns out that Labour’s only interest was finding something else to urge the people to feel uncomfortable about – then they would mumble something about 51 proposals from another planet and everyone would think all would be hunky dory under Joseph. J’accuse never fell for that sales pitch (see That Bohemian Planet 51) because anybody with a head on their shoulders and a brain between their ears could smell the Labour party’s particular brand of bull a mile away.

Now what do we have? We have ministers toying with public safety, others playing around with our code of laws as though it were a restaurant menu that needs bringing up to date, we have obscure dealings with not so democratic and open nations, we have a refusal to be accountable in parliament, we have a mess of an energy program complete with a faffing minister who does all he can to divert attention, we have a transport fiasco about to blow up again and we have a never ending system of nepotistic and taghnalkoll appointments that is about as barefaced a raspberry to the all that bullshit about meritocracy and transparency.

Now do you see how ironic the Dr BS moniker actually is?

 

Categories
Mediawatch Politics

Sino-Maltese

sino_maltese_akkuzaSino- is a prefix that we get from Latin, Arabic and Sanskrit. In all three of these classical languages it refers to the land of the rising sun. In Latin they were referred to as Sinae, the Arabs call them Al-Sin and for the Sanskrit it is Cina. The prefix was quite the vogue in the cold war years when we would often read of Sino-Soviet, Sino-Cuban or Sino-Korean (DR) relations. It’s funny how we do not come across it that much now – nowadays we are more prone to read something like “Chinafication” which is the title of a new facebook group arguing against the growing influence of China in Maltese matters.

Cargolux is an important Luxembourg company that deals with air freight and traffic in Luxembourg. Back in 1982 (The Dark Ages when the Wall was still in place) China Airlines became one of the first strategic partners of CargoLux. In 2014 Henan Civil Aviation Development and Investment, a Chinese company, acquired a 35% stake in Cargolux. A strategically important company for Luxembourg was now 1/3 China owned (read all about Cargolux here).

Chinese investment is not limited to the Grand Duchy. Sino-funds are being invested all across the globe. It’s all about business and money. It should be. It’s not about “Chinafication”. Prior to the Chinese there were petro-dollars that were an easy investment. The US and Russia too were previously the source of much foreign investment. So when is Chinafication wrong?

Well the problem with Sino-Maltese relations is the lack of transparency. Complete, absolute, total lack of transparency. The Labour government very evidently struck some strange deals with Chinese counterparts before it got elected. Now, the nation that has its Cultural Centre bang behind Castille and that has just purchased a huge chunk of land at a very cheap price seems to have its finger in almost every pie (or iced bun) that the Labour party got its hands onto when it got into government.

The Leisure Clothing scandal as chronicled elsewhere in the nationalist party media is a clear example of the wrong kind of “investment” turning foul. It’s less sino- and much more sinful. While other nations are striking smart deals with China taking advantage of the liquidity that is on offer, Malta’s government turned the nation into one giant souk (that’s suq) in Maltese selling off such vital necessities as our main source of power without as much as a system of checks. Meanwhile our dealings with the Chinese look shadier than ever. Minister Mizzi’s wife is being paid the same salary as an ambassador with the same conditions and yet we are still in the dark as to her operations.

Labour decided to turn into a pimp that is whoring the nation away to the darker side of China’s dealings. China is a behemoth, an enormous giant, and it would take little or nothing for Labour and its band of inept “diplomats” to have touched on a wrong, corrupt, vein that is unable to bring any possible benefits to Malta under than a hypothetical quick buck. Labour’s willingness to play along with the lack of transparency is shameful (though barely unpredictable giving the tune to which they have always played).

The problem is not Chinafication. The problem is that our dealings with China are being managed by incompetent, greedy persons who are unable to fathom the consequences of their hapless arrangements. Worse still, even if they did fathom the consequences they would not care less. Which is why they probably end up dealing with the wrong kind of Chinese and probably why their “bargains” are really a ticking time bomb that will explode in all our faces.

At our expense.

 

Categories
Mediawatch

The Leader’s Ship

Joseph Muscat has reiterated his wish that Malta becomes a ‘leader’ in Europe. Muscat’s record of bravado and not too cleverly disguised machismo might still have some appeal with the sheep in his fold but the contradictions and cracks in the ably constructed mask  do not cease to multiply. The Labour party and its acolytes continue to speak as though there is no world outside the cave, as though its interpretations of the shadows on the wall are the only ones that count. Meanwhile the myths of nationalism, faith in the Maltese people and meritocracy continue to crumble visibly for anyone interested in noticing them.

If Joseph Muscat is hoping to “lead” Europe with his citizenship programme then he has either lost the plot or never had one. The latest voice to criticise Labour’s scheme comes from Labour’s very own European family. Socialist leader Swoboda stated that the citizenship undermines European values. Quite a heavy statement that. All Muscat sees of course is 1 billion something euros rushing state into Malta’s coffers. The weak tweaking of the scheme was sold to no one other than the “social partners” that had already been bought to the Labour side before the election. In substance it remains the same. There is no element of leadership or creativeness in this scheme. It is an outright sale of a European visa – technically Malta is selling something that is not even entirely its own to give away.

Does Muscat expect other countries to take Malta’s ‘leadership’ cue? What would happen if all 28 countries put the same citizenship for sale at the same price and the same conditions. Aesop’s goose that lays golden eggs comes to mind. In Malta the voter still gets sold with the promise of money shooting into the nation’s coffers – supposedly used to mitigate the infamous ‘cost of living’. It’s a half-baked plan though and worse still it has been entrusted in the hands of “foreigners’ who will be cashing in on Malta’s moment of foreign policy folly. And to think that all that fuss was made on a Maltese clock a while back.

What leadership from a government that is “learning as we go” with petrol procurement? Yes, you can already hear the broken record of “better than the corruption under the nationalist” – sure it is, meanwhile petrol and diesel are more expensive than under the corrupt blues and nobody is batting an eyelid. This same government expects to lead while it commits gaffe after gaffe in sectors such as health care reneging on promise after promise sold cheaply to an electorate whose only motivation was that it was fed up with being screwed over by the same people. A solution to Mater Dei? Pull the other one.

Even the transport shift away from the infamous Arriva is turning out to be a not too veiled ploy to simply give the reins in the hand of a Labour papabile without too much of real reform. No sooner that the incumbent was mobbed out of its contract we have the roadmap government selling the idea of higher subsidies. More bills for the taxpayer to foot eventually thanks to a reluctance to take a real holistic approach to the problem. Add to those bills the probable high bill of the National Bank settlement and you  can see government’s sudden urgency to find some easy money.

No wonder Muscat is insisting on the hairbrained citizenship scheme. He might believe that he looks like a determined nationalistic leader – calling foul on those dastardly nationalists who are working against “national interest” but to the more intelligent among us it is evident that the only one operating against national interest is Muscat himself.

We also had George Vella replying to worries echoed in this blog about the destruction of Syrian chemical weapons off the Maltese coast. “No chemicals will be dumped in the Mediterranean” – well, George, that was not the question was it? What really worried anybody who cared was the evidence that this ‘destroying chemicals at sea’ business sounds like something that is happening for the first time. Was Malta – loud, foot stamping Malta, Malta the leader – given a place at the table of nations monitoring the activity? Are our authorities being kept informed of the steps being taken and have they been given any form of reassurance?

We do not really have a leadership or any aspiration to lead other countries. We are in the hands of a bunch of politicians working on knee-jerk policies that are the result of issuing many cheques before the election that now threaten to bounce.

And the nationalist party? Well, they are intent on still sticking the middle finger up at a large swathe of the electorate. Their latest solution: Norman Vella. Now isn’t that grand?

leadership_akkuza