Not the immediate reaction

We would like to go for a less immediate reaction, if for no other reason because the immediate reactions are all piloted by spin. The government, and to a lesser extent the Opposition, go for their respective spins because their aim is to get the people to subscribe to their spin.

The annual ritual of Budget Day follows a very predictable path. First, the minister’s speech, which follows the minister’s presentation to the media. Then the immediate reactions from the prime minister and the Opposition counterpart, then the series of statements from the constituted bodies and next day the reactions on the papers.

It will only be in due time that the real assessment of the Budget and all it means becomes clearer and clearer. Before that, there will be the now also traditional speeches by the Leader of the Opposition in reaction to the Budget Speech and the speech by the prime minister in reaction to the reaction. Then parliament goes into overdrive with debates on each minister’s portfolio.

And we are not there yet. For now we also have to wait for the reaction by Brussels (which in our case will not be negative, as opposed to that by the new Italian government).

Only then will our House of Representatives be ready to confirm the Budget. After which, there will be the also usual long discussion by the House on the Bill to implement the Budget, a long debate in which all MPs like to take part.

We would like to go for a less immediate reaction, if for no other reason because the immediate reactions are all piloted by spin. The government, and to a lesser extent the Opposition, go for their respective spins because their aim is to get the people to subscribe to their spin.

Besides, many times the impact of the financial programme can only be seen in long-term. Unfortunately, the reaction by most of us to the Budget Speech is more on the lines of “What’s in it for me?” or “What will I get?”

On the contrary, the real question to ask is “What will this Budget do to our country?” That is why it is so futile to hear politicians competing on who gave more: there are times when the economy is on a downswing and times when it is on the upswing and the economic maneuver is different in each case.

In our case, with regards to the Budget Speech, this has to be seen within the context of an economy that, as admitted by everyone including rating agencies is going very well and a growth that has outpaced that of other EU Member States.

It is when one delves further and tries to see how this growth was brought about that one can judge the validity or otherwise of the Budget Speech. The most one can say about the growth there has been is that it was brought about by the sale of passports and by the addition of so many people to the workforce, both women returning to the workforce and people from abroad.

That has indeed worked. But now we must move on to a higher level. As the EY survey we report on in this issue says, employers are not finding the resources they require to increase their production. Our education system, in which we each year pour in so much money, is still registering the same wasteful amount of schoolchildren who leave school without any skill or educational certificate and who choose not to go on to the tertiary level.

Likewise, our manufacturing sector has its achievers and its laggards and the efficiency of the sector as a whole is still far from where it could be and certainly far from that found in our competing countries.

We certainly need to have our champions but all we seem to get is the also-rans, the second-bests if not the discards.

And, of course, we have a huge inflated government bureaucracy which is mostly surplus to requirements – but we do not think the Budget Speech addressed this issue or promised a slimmeddown government.