400 contractors, 316 square kilometres: The Christmas Present

Sandro Chetcuti of the Malta Developers Association is obviously right. Property is indeed the only remaining viable investment option in Malta.

He is also right in claiming that “development” is restricted to about a third of the country’s land mass. So essentially, if we take Chetcuti’s observations to their logical conclusion, the bottom line is that since there are virtually no investment possibilities in Malta, the natural and urban environment has to be sacrificed at the altar of profit. Four hundred contractors have to survive in one way or another on an archipelago of only 316 square kilometres.

Chetcuti is right to take this position. He speaks of, and for, the particular interests of the sector he represents. He has no duty toward society.

That moral and political duty behoves the political class and the government in particular. The State is the only actor in Malta to muster enough power and resources to change the destiny of the country.

One big shortcoming of the democratic system is that the State gives heed to sectorial requests, as each sector of the economy/society cries poor, in economic terms and in terms of pretended civil rights. A good political leader knows how to strike a fair balance between sectorial demands (which do not always reflect needs) and society in general. A mediocre political leader panders to sectors, forgetting the larger community of which those sectors are only parts.

The current government is consistent in its contradictions. In the last few days, for instance, it claimed it wanted law and order and at the same time that it cannot ignore those who use recreational drugs. (Perhaps that is the reason for the sudden urge to impose law and order on the streets? If people smoke more weed, one can only expect more accidents...?)

This current government is a government of contradictions. But even way back in the days when he was in Opposition, Joseph Muscat preached the gospel of the moderates and the liberals. As the late Lino Spiteri had asked, somewhat rhetorically, how was it possible to grow together two irreconcilable political strains (the liberals and the moderates), so we now ask how it is possible to pander to sectorial demands without harming the common good.

The construction industry is a case in point. It is clear that 400 contractors and their employees need to work and earn a living. But it is equally clear that having 400 contractors on a territory of 316 square kilometres is not sustainable unless you demolish and rebuild everything over and over again.

It is therefore the duty of the State to think of the common good, to find a way to preserve the environment and channel elsewhere the entrepreneurial energy of many of those contractors. (Both objectives are foreseen in the Constitution, by the way: Articles 9 and 18.)

To this end, it has to devise ways in which businesses and investors can invest, export, and grow. Selling passports to foreign magnates is not what the common good requires. It is a pirate not an entrepreneurial activity. It opens up no investment opportunities for individual investors, while bringing in possibly murky money and branding Malta as a possible Tortuga in the Mediterranean.

In this respect, Dr Muscat’s government is an utter failure. Sandro Chetcuti’s insightful analysis leaves room for no other conclusion. If construction is indeed the only remaining viable investment option available in Malta, then Dr Muscat should stop his Berlusconian antics and start working to create alternative investment

opportunities.

Silvio Berlusconi is the master of political marketing – look at how he’s marketing his political comeback by offering heaven on earth to pensioners. Dr Muscat should stop following Berlusconist pandering to sectorial demands.

Instead, he should ask Central Bank Governor Mario Vella to give him a copy of his Reflections in a Canvas Bag for Christmas. Dr Vella managed to put an entire political programme in the footnotes of that singularly good book of 1989, emphasising industrial production and economic diversification. When it was published, Reflections was highly praised in the now-defunct intellectual review Society.

The ideas of the young Mario Vella are part of the solution to get out of the situation Sandro Chetcuti has rightly highlighted.

Otherwise, our environment is doomed. And with it our need not to live on a perpetual building site.

Malta needs to export and expand its external trade.

The country does not need to export its EU passports. It needs to export the ideas, innovations, insights, expertise, and creativity, of its entrepreneurs.

It needs to take full advantage of EU membership, not by soliciting rich but possibly shady third-country nationals to buy EU passports from the Maltese souk, but by proposing highend, innovative products, solutions, services.

Malta needs its entrepreneurs to be courageous and such courage can be engen- dered only if the State stands foursquare behind them. Our domestic market is too small for our home-grown entrepreneurs to build up enough muscle to face the world all by themselves.

Malta needs its entrepreneurs to float their stocks and shares on the stock exchange for the investor to share in the growth, rather than having to resort to construction (or rather demolition) and the devastation of the environment in order to invest and earn a decent return.

If Joseph Muscat really wants to be the best in Europe, this is the present he should give the Maltese people this Christmas.