Blatant partisanship

I was both shocked and horrified by the full-page advert taken out by the Ministry for Investment, Industry and Information Technology in your edition last week. In this age of media manipulation and intense public scrutiny I would have expected more discretion on the part of the government when releasing information to the public.

The 'advert' showed the changes in overall costs for water and electricity during the mid- to late 1990s as compared to the recent increases due to the 17 per cent surcharge introduced in the 2005 budget.

While the contents of the 'advert' were factual, they were hardly unbiased. For a start, they stressed the fact that, in 1997, Malta saw a huge increase in its water and electricity bills (under the then Labour government, although this is never mentioned). Secondly, the 1997 figures and the little explanation that went with them were shown in red (leaving the reader with no subliminal doubt as to who the culprit was). Lastly, the overall tone of the 'advert' tried to convey the message "If you think things are bad now - just see how bad they were in 1997".

I want to make it very clear that I was one of the many who rushed to the polls to vote Labour out of office in 1998 after our utility bills skyrocketed. I also want to make it clear that I have no beef whatsoever with the content of the 'advert' itself. It is, after all, both factually correct and a good way of conveying the differences between how the Nationalist government have gone about changing water amd electricity prices as opposed to the way the Labour government did in 1997.

What incensed me, and I hope many others, was the fact that this blatantly partisan piece of 'pseudo-advertising' was released by a government agency. It may have cleverly neglected to use the words Labour or Nationalist to disguise its partisanship but anybody with a modicum of intelligence would have clearly understood its underlying implication.

I cannot countenance the fact that the Nationalist Party is using government (i.e. public) funds to 'inform' the public at large how it is doing better than the Opposition. Such divisive measures should not be used by a party in power and they should never use taxpayers' money to do so.

If the Nationalist Party wants to release these types of advert they are more than free to do so, however I would suggest that they use their own funds in the future.