Selling the family silver is common with individuals and the State when they run into financial difficulties. Proceeds from such sales are often used to bridge a fiscal deficit that occurs when current expenditure exceeds income.
However, when no such fiscal distress is apparent, one must question why public assets are sold into private hands at what can only be described as knockdown prices.
The closeness of governments of various hues to private interests, the in-and-out revolving doors between politicians or their cronies and business, and the sweetheart conditions attached to transfers of public land to private entities make the sales at these prices doubly suspect. The ineptitude, naivety or venality that may afflict public land transfer negotiations are never in the best interest of taxpayers.
The list of public land transfers that raised suspicions is quite long and stretches over the last few decades. One can include the transfer of land for the construction of the Hilton, the site formerly occupied by Lowenbrau and the sale of the prime property formerly owned by Maltacom in Paceville that were negotiated under the previous administrations.
The present administration is involved in ongoing negotiations with Corinthia Group to use large stretches of public land in Malta’s most valuable site in St Julian’s for speculation purposes. It has also sold the former ITS site to the DB Group for just €15 million. More recently, Parliament approved the privatisation of the Marsa horse racing track with an adjacent plot of public land that will be used for commercial purposes.
It is about the doubtful value for money that taxpayers are getting from politicians who are no more than temporary stewards of public assets
At times, superficial efforts are made to follow ethical governance principles in the privatisation of public land. However, the suspected incestuous relationships that may exist between the legislative, regulatory and administrative arms of government destroys the trust that ordinary citizens have in procedures that should safeguard their interests.
The concern that many have about the way public land is being transferred to private entities is not about privatisation. It is about the doubtful value for money that taxpayers are getting from politicians who are no more than temporary stewards of public assets.
In this context one cannot but point out the government’s failure to upgrade many of our schools.
Patients in Mount Carmel Hospital have to live in shameful conditions in a Victorian building that humiliates whoever enters it. The run-down public buildings and services which are in urgent need of upgrading seem to be another lower priority for capital investment for this government. So is the lack of investment in social and affordable housing that is creating an underclass of the working poor.
The argument that the transfer of public land to private entities encourages investment in tourism is just a red herring. Most of the new investment will be going into property development that will just give hefty returns to private businesses.
What is needed at this stage is to invest more in people and skills at a time when our educational system still lags behind that of our competitors. We continue to depend on imported labour that is putting our public services and physical infrastructure under high stress.
None of this seems to worry the government as it dashes to strip everything public to the bare bones. The administration of our hospitals, for instance, has been privatised through deals that remain obscure as to the benefits that ordinary people will reap from them.
The interests of ordinary people can only be safeguarded when the checks and balances that should exist in the governance of the public sector are shown to be effective.
The suspicions surrounding the various transfers of public land to private entities have not been addressed robustly enough in Parliament. With so many MPs caught up in conflicts of interest, it is very worrying that parliamentary democracy is not an effective bulwark to keep the government in check.
The property deals undertaken by the government may pass the test of legality: sly politicians and their advisers have the resources to create a semblance of legality in the privatisation processes. However, they fail the test of good governance, where doing what is right is very different from merely not breaking the rules.
Political and community leaders need to act as the audible voice of conscience of our society if we are to promote justice and fairness for all.