It is in a time of crisis that true colours and leaders emerge. There is no doubt that we are living a trying period. Our lifestyle has been shocked; our patterns of behaviour altered; the beauty of our social proximity wiped out overnight and our livelihood threatened as a result of the seizure of economic activity across a multitude of sectors.
As things stand today, it’s difficult to crystal ball the end-date of the COVID-19 crisis. Nevertheless, I believe that this is a temporary storm which, if we act conscientiously and with the right rigour, we shall manage to weather both from health and economic perspectives. There are no two ways about the fact that the coming weeks will be tremendously challenging. Once the health impact settles down our next mountain to climb will be the market psychology and the readjustment of our society to a post-crisis Malta.
This is why we are unwavering in doing whatever it takes to ensure that not even a single business, small or large, is allowed to fail over the coming weeks. We cannot allow our enterprises to fail as we would be failing our society at large. It beggars belief that after years of bragging on record economic growth and of living in the “best of times”, at the first snag, our economic edifice is collapsing, paving the way for mass redundancies with employees and their families being made to pay the price of years of cash-burn in discretionary recurrent expenditure.
Our hearts are full of passion for our people and, make no mistake, we shall be their voice to ensure that the economic success they generated will be returned to them
The constituted bodies did not mince their words when reacting to government’s package. It is ironic that the package that had to send a signal of hope sounded more like a death knell of resignation that it was inevitable for enterprises to fail, placing thousands of jobs in jeopardy. It was baffling to listen to the government allude to profit reserves and cash piles which the industry has amassed over the last years, clearly reflecting a government which is entirely out of touch with the reality of running a business.
Employers are not pirates, stashing profits in a safe haven to enjoy them while their employees face the brunt of the crisis. To the contrary they are men and women who have vision, who borrow money, risk their belongings (many times their own residential property) and strive hard to build an enterprise which they nurture like their own children and pride themselves on seeing it grow from one generation to another.
As an economy in a small state, we are fortunate enough that most local businesses, even the larger ones and those with foreign owners, treat their workforce as part of their family and not as a different class of human beings. These are what our business owners are made of and this is why they are angry and upset when they see a government throwing the book at them in this time of crisis.
The key plank of our proposed aid package is for the government to fund 50 per cent of the employees’ salaries capped at a reasonable amount (certainly not based on the €800 proposed by government) which is agreed to with constituted bodies and trade unions. This is why we have the MCESD: not for the social partners to sit in as an audience but to collectively build our socio-economic resilience together as a modern state does.
Last week, in Parliament, when asked to elaborate on how employees will be aided to sustain their livelihood, the minister of finance, in petty tribal fashion, elected to ridicule the Nationalist Party regarding its financial situation. We may not have the party coffers full of cash or our property register full of public property that belongs to the people. But our hearts are full of passion for our people and, make no mistake, we shall be their voice to ensure that the economic success they generated will be returned to them.
Claudio Grech is shadow minister for social policy.