A long hard look in the mirror
Malta needs to look into the mirror and truly analyse itself.
How have we arrived where we are at now? What mistakes were made over the past years and what needs to be done?
We need to take a long and hard look at ourselves. From the sale of citizenship, to the hospitals’ concession, to the Electrogas deal and to the defence of the indefensible scandals that occurred. The past years has seen Malta’s reputation sink to the bottom.
The thing is, those who are currently leading the country have not yet really condemned the mistakes made by Joseph Muscat’s administration.
The former Prime Minister allowed Malta’s name to be dragged through the dirt by his inaction, allowed deals to be made which were, from the start, knee-deep in controversy and scandal.
The mentality of ‘but look what the others did years ago’, does not fly any more. The Labour Party was elected in 2013 for change, thus meaning that such an excuse goes out the window. It was elected to do better.
In terms of civil rights, well done to the Labour Party. Financially, also well done, although how those finances were acquired does raise questions (the sale of Maltese passports being one such questionable decision).
Prime Minister Robert Abela seems to be trying to separate himself from Muscat and move forward, but what he really needs to be doing is actually condemning the wrong that was done first. Saying things could have been done better is not enough. Proper investigations into all the scandals are needed, and equally important is an investigation into the lack of police action on scandals during that period. After all that was one of the major issues back then.
In addition, the Prime Minister needs to bring about a mentality change within the Labour Party as indeed some PL ministers are still of the old mindset. One example is when Parliamentary Secretary for Citizenship and Communities Alex Muscat claimed that the Passport Papers investigation is an attack on Malta. This statement effectively implies that the press is attacking Malta.
He needs to look at the passport sales system created by the previous administration, which he formed part of, instead of arguing that the press is the enemy, and actually require true genuine links with the country for those purchasing citizenship in the country.
The sale of citizenship brought funds to Malta which have proved invaluable yes, but at what cost?
Are we not proud of our heritage, our history, our language? Are we not proud of where we come from, who we are? Because selling our passport without the need for applicants to truly build a real, true link with Malta meant we sold ourselves short. This scheme should have been handled better, could have been handled better. The scheme could have been introduced in a way that would ensure real genuine links and still result in the income the country wanted.
Suddenly from the government’s reaction it seems that Malta’s economy is, after all, reliant on the IIP, saying that it was important to help Malta during the pandemic, yet in the past the government said the economy was not reliant on it.