Hope, hype and happy talk

After twenty three years of almost uninterrupted power, the Nationalist government is still dishing out the same old recipe of hope, hype and happy talk to dupe the long suffering Maltese electorate into believing that they are in control of the difficult situation that we are facing. The reality of course is something very different. The ‘par idejn sodi’ and ‘finanzi fis-sod’ slogans are now proving to be such a cruel scam devised by this administration.

In his press conference on the second anniversary of the current legislature, the Prime Minister once again painted a rosy picture of what he believes are his achievements. We rejoice and celebrate the occasional real good news that relates to initiatives that could create jobs and economic prosperity. The announcement of another pharmaceutical company setting up in Malta and the Ryanair agreement are indeed most welcome. The PL hopes that there will be more of these rare sparks of brightness in an otherwise bleak economic scenario.

But there are other realities that the Prime Minister and his dysfunctional team prefer to ignore or distort with endless hype and happy talk. The water and electricity tariffs are one such example. Rather than rubbish those who are clearly indicating that the way these tariffs are being calculated by Enemalta is unfair and inequitable, Minister Gatt should for once have the humility to admit that his government is hiding his past and present mismanagement of our energy policy.

It now transpires that Enemalta has a total debt burden of € 450 million. It is also more than clear that the lack of capital investment in our energy services in the past two decades is being remedied by increasing the present tariffs with an unreasonable premium to cover the investment that can no longer be postponed. The cost of this economic mismanagement has to be paid by the long suffering families and businesses that continue to struggle to survive.

The performance of this administration in the area of health care is no less shameful. After building a hospital that ended costing more than double what it should have cost, we now have 20,000 people waiting for important surgery at our Mater Dei hospital. Yet, we are told that most of the problems in our health service are the fault of people who dump their elderly relatives at Mater Dei. We won’t be surprised if now the government will rope in the police to forcibly return elderly patients to their homes. This is the state of the art health care service that this government is providing for our people.

Our educational system is another victim of this administration’s incompetence. After all these years of Nationalist leadership in the field of education we still have the highest rate in the EU of students leaving the educational system without any skills or qualifications. The hype about how much money we are spending on education only confirms how this government has got its strategies on education wrong.

If success had to be measured by the amount of money one spends on resolving a problem than no doubt this government would have been very successful in the field of education. But the hard reality is that success in education is measured by the ability of our young people to find jobs and personal fulfilment as a result of their educational achievement.

With youth unemployment being as high as it is, and with the number of unqualified young people staying unacceptably high, the Gonzi administration should no longer resort to happy talk to hide its failures in the field of education.

With our rate of unemployment continuing to near all time highs, with a decrease of 1.800 full time jobs in 2009, with the queue of long-term unemployed continuing to increase, no hype about this government’s commitment to focus on job creation can be credible. Those affected by unemployment deserve better than being fed false hope for a brighter future.

The Prime Minister will no doubt continue to accuse the PL Opposition that we are ‘downers’ and preachers of doom and gloom. But we know what people are feeling, especially those who are experiencing a steady deterioration in their quality of life because of excessive burdens placed by the Gonzi administration on their families.

Our loyalty as a responsible Opposition is to these decent people who have been so let down by this government that has promised so much and delivered so little.

Dr Charels Mangion

Shadow minister Finance PL

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