Known as the 10th month, October is really ‘the eighth month’. In ancient Rome, the year had only 10 months, beginning in March and ending in December. Julius Caesar added the two months of January and February so that the calendar would be based on the solar year.
In the Julian Calendar, October kept its name but became the 10th month. October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month celebrated throughout the world.
Also commemorated in October are Mental Health Awareness Week, the International Day of the Girl, International Chocolate Day and, of course, Halloween.
In Malta, however, October can also be described as the ‘month of miracles’ when the government presents its financial budget for the following year.
We all know the drill.
The finance minister carries the precious document in his shiny red budget case with TV cameras rolling and media photographers snapping hundreds of photos to immortalise the signing of the document by the President of the Republic.
Then, in parliament, the minister will read his hours-long speech highlighting the economic miracles the government managed to perform the past year and enlightening us about what marvels it is expected to perform over the next 12 months.
One sentence that has been common in all speeches in the last decade is “this will be a budget without taxes”. Those will come later.
Finance Minister Clyde Caruana will gift us with mind-boggling figures and statistics that few will understand and fewer will care about because people are facing real glitches and they will be expecting the government to address them.
Malta is once again top of the list of emissions discharges, with the highest rise in greenhouse gases that rose by nearly nine per cent between the first quarters of 2023 and 2024.
Environmental NGOs are asking how the government can reach the EU target in the next five years.
To make matters worse, the government has just commissioned a new temporary power station, working on cancer-inducing heavy fuel oils, costing €37 million.
So, it is obvious that citizens will be looking forward to any tangible solutions that the government will suggest. And these proposals shouldn’t be short-term but a permanent plan to try and reach the expected EU standards.
Many will wonder if the finance minister will talk about the traffic problem that is getting worse every day. Will he promise the government will offer a solution for the frustrated drivers stuck in traffic every day going and coming back from work? Not really, and the reason is simple: the government and its highly-paid officials are just not efficient enough to unravel any significant ideas.
Will he enlighten us why newly built roads costing millions of euros are flooded every time it rains? The Kalkara promenade, which cost €7 million, is the latest disaster.
Maybe he will justify the appointment of failed MEP candidate Steve Ellul as CEO of Infrastructure Malta as a warranty for a better future.
I’m certain that Caruana will not explain why, after more than a decade and €700 million spent, Infrastructure Malta has not yet come up with a tangible plan to have all residential roads tarmacked.
Driving through towns and villages has become traumatic, with work taking months on end to be completed, followed by the usual digging up of roads a few days after they are resurfaced.
No wonder mental health problems are on the rise!
People hope that, maybe, the minister will explain what actions the government will take to address and possibly alleviate the ever-increasing costs that are hitting low-income families. According to a recent Caritas Malta research study, food consumption takes up 56 per cent of these families’ yearly income.
Will the minister explain how the government is to tackle the problem of the more than 100,000 people in Malta facing poverty, with the majority of them living below the at-risk-of-poverty limit of a meagre €11,000 every year?
Will Caruana, responsible for Malta’s finances, bequeath details about the hundreds of persons of trust, backbenchers, ex MPs, former One TV reporters, relatives of ministers and parliamentary secretaries and disgruntled PL officials in newly created ‘cushy jobs’ who are being funded to the tune of millions of euros annually by Maltese taxpayers?
Quite unlikely because, after all, what are a few more millions of euros added to the national debt?
People will rightly expect the minister to announce that, finally, the government has decided to make a serious attempt to recover the €400 million that were gifted to Vitals/Steward Health Care, making some corrupt politicians rich.
With that money it could build a new hospital, make improvements at Mater Dei Hospital and, maybe, also construct the proposed new mental hospital.
Parents and students will be looking forward to any incentives the government will propose to try and stop the brain drain of youths leaving Malta to look for a better future in other European countries.
Who knows, maybe the minister will announce that the government has finally recognised the urgent need to change direction in its economic plan and abandon once and for ever Joseph Muscat’s senseless idea of an economic model based on the importation of hundreds of thousands of lowly paid third-country nationals. Perhaps it would heed the opposition’s suggestions and change course.
And, finally, people will expect the minister to officially announce that the government will be adopting, without any other delays, the recommendations made by the public inquiry into the assassination of journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia.
And, not only that, but many other inquiries’ recommendations that have yet to be implemented. This to ensure that, perhaps, the rule of law in Malta will finally be respected.
Joe Azzopardi is a former official at the ministries of the environment, justice and home affairs, and foreign affairs.