The Qui-si-sana syndrome

The residents of Qui-si-sana did not vote for a bulldozer at the last general election. Most of them voted Nationalist because they identified with what they thought this party stood for: reasonable policies through a process of dialogue and consultation.

Now they are angry and feel let down by three of the four Nationalist MPs they elected because it seems that the PN in government is set to build an underground retail, leisure and parking complex in the area and reroute heavy traffic through their streets. They fear that their whole life is going to be disrupted.

They are angry that the party they have supported all their lives is behaving like a "bulldozer", totally insensitive to their needs and bent on crushing their concerns.

The anger and frustration of the residents was very palpable recently when their association organised a meeting at a hotel in Sliema. Among those present were those who felt that Government is behaving arrogantly and insensitively, not just in the Qui-si-sana question, but all over Malta. They recall how the Nationalist Party promised prosperity, sound finances, better governance once Malta became a member state of the European Union and now they feel they have been cheated.

In a multiparty democracy these residents do not need to be held hostage to the Nationalist Party all their lives. There are a lot of citizen initiatives that they can take: petitions, media campaign, lobbying all the MPs and local councillors of Sliema ...but the ultimate and most eloquent weapon in a democracy remains the vote. The vote is theirs and not the property of the party they have always supported. They are free to use it to elect people who will respect their rights and needs to represent them, and not bull dozers.

Head in a plastic bag

Government expected us to applaud when it abruptly announced that it was slapping an eco-tax on plastic bags to reduce the 52 million plastic bags that we use and throw away every year. But the way Government kept changing its mind on different aspects of this policy shows clearly that the decision was taken without any planning and serious reflection.

Serious governments introduce eco-taxes in a planned way reduce income tax and national insurance contributions so that eco-taxes remain revenue-neutral. After their introduction citizens do not end up paying more taxes but their tax burden is distributed differently.

In Malta eco-taxes were introduced not for environmental reasons but as part of Government's strategy to tax practically everything. Eco-taxes have become just another layer of taxation together with VAT, income tax, surcharge and national insurance contribution.

Serious governments do not introduce an eco-tax from one day to the next. They plan ahead and prepare their citizens and business operators for the step. Take the Irish government. On March 4, 2002 it put into effect an environmental levy of 15c on plastic bags that had been legislated in 2001. Public and business consultations on it had started on August 19, 1999.

The policy was a success and plastic bags practically disappeared in Ireland as after the introduction of the levy their use was reduced by 95 per cent. Before the introduction of the levy it is estimated some 1.2 billion plastic shopping bags were used in Ireland, most of which used to litter towns, countryside, coastline and the sea, with a negative impact on the environment and on their wildlife and habitats.

The levy encouraged the use of reusable bags and changed people's attitudes to litter and pollution in Ireland. It was a success because its introduction was planned well, people and business were given time to prepare for it and did not experience it as yet another tax.

No sign of a new spring...

In the summer of 1996 the Nationalist Party opted for an early election to conceal the truth about the public deficit. The new Labour government exposed the terrible situation public finances were in. The Nationalist Party promptly dismissed the claims. Within a few months' time the PN started blaming the MLP for the deficit.

The Nationalist Party started hiding the deficit problem again after it was returned to office in 1998. On April 6, 2003, just before the last general elections, Dr Eddie Fenech Adami was boasting that "in the 1999 budget a plan of action was launched to reduce the deficit to three per cent of GDP. This plan is being implemented and the targets are being met earlier than predicted." A year later the deficit had shot up to over nine per cent of GDP.

During the months of the referendum and general election campaigns in 2003 the Nationalist government did not publish any statistics of public finances, to conceal the fact that the public debt and the structural deficit were growing. Instead it mounted huge billboards saying that public finances were on a sound footing. Its leaders claimed in their speeches that the deficit was being contained and reduced when the opposite was happening.

A European Commission report published last year concluded that "the excess of the general government deficit over the three per cent of GDP reference value does not result, in the sense of the Stability and Growth Pact, from an unusual event outside the control of the Maltese authorities, nor is it the result of a severe economic downturn."

In simple and blunt language the European Commission said that government created this deficit and must take steps to reduce it. The Nationalist government did not attack the European Commission and called it "liars", "idiots", "imbeciles", "stupid", "false prophets" and a string of other insults that Labour politicians were subjected to by Nationalist politicians, more than 10 years ago, when they started pointing to the unsustainable deficit and public debt that were being created by the reckless policies of the PN government.

At the opening of the tenth Parliament in May 2003 the Nationalist government presented its programme heralding new times for our country: "This is indeed the dawn of a new spring." The commitment was taken to "... change all that we have allowed to deteriorate, stagnate or to go wrong through lethargy, carelessness or lack of thought."

Since then over a year and a half has passed and there are still no signs of a new spring.

evaristbartolo@hotmail.com