Prime Minister, I ask you again

The Prime Minister has enough popular backing that he should be taking the opportunity to make crucial but difficult choices.

Malta’s mounting challenges are being papered over, but there will come a time where these hard decisions must be taken. The longer we delay, the costlier the final price.

As the Prime Minister has promised to step down after the MEP elections, this would also be a perfect opportunity for him to leave a legacy more palatable to his critics and less divisive to a deeply split country.

The environmental disasters we face are the most obvious opportunity for the Prime Minister to back the health and wellbeing of the general public over the pockets of businessmen. The ITS project is likely to go ahead because the sale of that land was likely the result of a pre-electoral arrangement. Is it, however, going to improve anyone’s life? The students for one are not happy about being sent into exile at SmartCity.

Beyond overdevelopment in general, which speaks for itself, Malta is facing an absolute disaster of a water crisis. Our aquifer is quickly been ruined and is turning saline. Right now, businesses and private persons alike receive free water from boreholes. We either add a real cost to water or we spend millions on pumping reverse osmosis water into the aquifer to replenish it. Otherwise, we will end up paying a far higher cost the more time we waste.

The temporary solutions to traffic and our severely overburdened public transport system are also recipes for disaster because of the plans to drastically increase Malta’s population. Besides, one must challenge the report that such a population increase is needed. Overpopulation is a great scheme to rent property and fuel development, but overburdens our already stretched resources. Why are we building an economy which requires a higher population, which in turn will require more migration? It is a vicious cycle, opting for quantity over quality.

The list of necessary but inconvenient solutions could neverending, but so far I have talked about symptoms. Let me talk about the cause of many of these problems, which Joseph Muscat needs to prioritise. The root of our problems boils down to a deficit of good governance. He has a unique window to make the necessary changes.

Malta’s governance malaise boils down to the fact that there is no difference between the Republic and the governing political party. The interests of the Republic should be distinct from the interests of the Party. In Malta’s case, public money and resources are used to prop up the Labour Party through cronyism and clientelism. Policy and law are bent to accommodate donors to the Labour Party as well as to win votes.

In such a climate, it becomes impossible for government to address monstrous problems which arise from poor governance. A classic example is ITS. Because our institutions are politically captured, db Group knows it will get the permit, and the ITS students are moved long before any permit is given. Public land and heritage is given up to accommodate Labour’s electoral success.

The question, then, is: why should Joseph Muscat fix our institutions if it is not in the interests of the Labour Party. It is because the Republic should serve the general public and not the political party. Furthermore, if the Republic is impartial, it means that Labour will not be completely sidelined if it loses an election. Justice will be blind if good governance is upheld, and everyone is treated fairly and equally. So-called incumbent advantage, or trading in influence, will no longer be an issue. Governments are then more likely to change on the basis of good policy.

Malta’s academics and experts know what needs fixing, but are systematically sidelined because their solutions make practical but not political sense. I ask that they be heard. Partit Demokratiku attempts to give them a voice, but the government must listen.

Labour can afford to tighten its belt for the good of the country. I ask the Prime Minister again - do the right thing. The fact that neither major party is willing to do so is the reason Partit Demokratiku’s success is crucial. The Third Party would take the unpopular but necessary decisions, pleasing its core vote and allowing its coalition partner to blame it.

How desperate must the situation become before we are willing to stop old habits, which are slowly killing us? Those include hanging on to an old way of doing things in the running the country – into the ground. Malta is like a workhorse pumped full of drugs being worked hard in the sun. Let us not wait for it all to collapse. It is time for real and sustainable progress.

Malta’s governance malaise boils down to the fact that there is no difference between the Republic and the governing political party. The interests of the Republic should be distinct from the interests of the Party. In Malta’s case, public money and resources are used to prop up the Labour Party through cronyism and clientelism.