Air Malta has been in restructuring mode for at least two decades. With the liberalisation of air travel more than two decades ago, it lost most of its monopolistic benefits and its commercial viability.
The strategies of political patronage over many years have burdened the national airline with high labour costs ultimately financed by taxpayers.
The EU competition authorities have approved more than one restructuring plan for the national airline in the last 20 years. All have failed despite millions of euros of taxpayer-financed subsidies.
Air Malta may soon be writing another sad chapter in local aviation history. A new airline may have to be set up to jettison the onerous financial baggage built over years of political mismanagement. Or Air Malta itself will once again be ‘restructured’. Whatever the future of the national airline, it seems that taxpayers will once again have to foot the bill for the lack of political and commercial accountability in its management.
The private sector is understandably livid over the agreement reached between the General Workers’ Union and the government to offer a generous severance scheme to Air Malta workers who are soon to be made redundant.
The Malta Employers’ Association called it “obscene” and the Malta Chamber of Commerce “absurd”. It is estimated the package will cost taxpayers €50 million, even if the ministry of finance refuses to give more details.
The MEA argues that “this severance deal is unprecedented and establishes that some animals are indeed more equal than others in Malta.
It is nothing more than daylight robbery”. The chamber said the severance amounts reflect the bargaining power of “overly protected groups”, resulting in unfair outcomes for the whole country.
Regular workers in the private sector can’t even dream about the red-carpet treatment being given to airline workers by the stewards of public finances.
Meanwhile, gig workers, like riders and many cleaners, are exploited and work in precarious conditions to which the government seems oblivious.
No wonder taxpayers react cynically when told they must pay their VAT and income tax as and when due.
The government will argue that shifting Air Malta workers to other sectors could well be dismissed by the European Commission as it is tantamount to state aid. The government also realised it was impossible to transfer well-paid Air Malta employees into the public sector and in the process inflate the yearly wage bill further.
But there is one thing which can never be ignored. Strong trust and accountability should be at the heart of all government financial management.
The government uses taxpayers’ money to invest in public assets and public services. It must therefore ensure it holds itself accountable for using these resources effectively. The falling trust of the public in the way its money is being managed and the way the government has bloated the public sector is damaging the democratic process.
Yet, those responsible for gross failures and waste of public financial resources are never held accountable. The abuses of two decades of political patronage in Air Malta have been swept under the carpet with another populist tactic meant to silence the dissent of 350 redundant workers.
Meanwhile, the private sector will have to keep depending on yet more imported labour.
The government’s human resources strategy for Air Malta unfairly discriminates between workers in the public sector with strong GWU support and those who work in the private sector who have to earn their living on a daily basis.
Taxpayers have every justification for feeling they have once again been short-changed by an administration that does not hold itself accountable for the misuse of public funds.