When politicians act as spokespersons for private industry

It is, to say the least, quite disconcerting when our politicians act as spokespersons for private industry. This happens quite frequently in Malta, with the latest case taking place on Monday.

When asked about the abysmal enrolment rate at the American University of Malta, which has only managed to attract 20-something students, despite planning to start off with a thousand youths in its classrooms, Prime Minister Joseph Muscat jumped to the company’s defence, saying he was convinced that things would change for the better.

The PM said he had absolutely no doubt that enrolment would pick up, that this would be a project everyone would be proud of and that it would turn out to be a “huge success.”

His comments could have been used in an AUM commercial.

That the government would try to save face after the Zonqor fiasco and the ‘slower than expected’ start is understandable. On the other hand, it is less easy to understand why the PM is acting as an AUM spokesman and making claims he knows he has no control over.

Quite frankly, this is a level of familiarity between politicians and business that we are not comfortable with.

Editor’s pick

Just as we are not comfortable with seeing our Prime Minister travel around the world for Henley and Partners roadshows to flog Maltese passports. Because, you know, Maltese passports are more attractive if it is the actual head of government that is marketing them, rather than a private company.

But then again, the Prime Minister’s level of familiarity with the passport sale scheme concessionaires had already been uncovered by the late Daphne Caruana Galizia, who had revealed that the company had informed the PM and other government officials of their plans to threaten her and the independent media houses with “ruinous” libel suits.

Army promotions

Foreigners who have no idea that Malta is a tiny island nation with an army of fewer than two thousand people must think that the AFM is capable of matching Russia’s armed forces, or maybe those of North Korea, with all the promotions handed out before the last general election.

More than a quarter of the army was promoted in the four weeks leading up to the general election, according to data tabled in Parliament this week.

No other army in the world sees so many people (as a percentage) promoted to staff sergeants, colonels and majors in such a short time span.

While many members of our armed forces are professional and deserve our praise and admiration, particularly those who daily risk life and limb to save lives, we cannot understand why these promotions have to be dished out just before an election.

This is something that happens under every administration but which seems to have become more common during the past few years.

The Labour Party had been in government for four years before a snap election was called for June. These promotions, many of which would have been backdated, could have been spread out over those four years and no one would have batted an eyelid. But of course it was more convenient to send the promotion letters in on the eve of an election, you, know, to remind these soldiers how much the government loves them.

And this is just the army we are talking about. Who knows what happened in the police force and the entire civil service.