‘Bongu, Ministru’…

Ever noticed how certain Cabinet Ministers are always very quick to tell us ‘what needs to be done’: even though it is part of their own job description to actually DO all those things (instead of merely talking about them); and – in most cases, anyway – they would also be the only people who even CAN do anything, about the situations they themselves suddenly complain about?

Take Finance Minister Clyde Caruana, for example. A couple of days ago –presumably, after finding himself stuck in traffic for anywhere up to two hours – he candidly admitted that the entire economic model he himself had championed for so long, was… ‘flawed’.

This is how it was reported on this portal: “[Caruana said] ‘I was a cheer leader of government policy that favoured a growth in human resources to enable this country to expand its productivity’; adding that this ‘encouraged more people to work and helped reduce dependency on social benefits’.

“However, he also admitted that the same recipe adopted over the past 10 years is unsuitable for the type of economic development the country should aim for in the next decade. ‘People are expecting from the government, not only economic growth but economic development; it is not just a question of having more money in your pocket, but having a better quality of life in all its totality’.”

My favourite part, however, was this: “‘If we adopt the same recipe; in the morning, rather than being stuck for one hour in traffic, we will be stuck for one-and-a-half or two hours; the tourism sector will invest in hotels that will remain empty; and this will apply to other sectors eventually,’ he reiterated.”

Hmmm. I don’t about you, but – reading all that again – I find myself vaguely reminded of a certain TV show that was very popular back in the 1980s, when I was growing up.

It was called: ‘BONĠU, MALTA!’; and back in the day, it became an instant by-word for: ‘Wakey, wakey!’… or ‘Rise and shine!’… or ‘Gee, you don’t say?’… or even (just to spell it out in unnecessarily large letters): ‘ABOUT BLOODY TIME YOU REALISED, TOO!” (I mean: it’s only what the entire environmentalist lobby has been trying to draw government’s attention to, unsuccessfully, ever since around 2013…)

But never mind all that, because I haven’t even got to the truly awkward part yet. Despite Caruana’s best efforts to make it look like this realization only just dawned on him over the last few days… this is actually the second time that our Finance Minister has publicly admitted to the same flaws in his government’s (and therefore, his own) economic policies.

And, oh look: the last time he made that declaration, was almost exactly a full year ago… on 25 September 2021, to be precise (by an extraordinary coincidence, also on the eve of the annual Budget. Who would have ever guessed?)

So, just to refresh everyone’s memory a little: this is what Clyde Caruana had told us all, roughly this time last year.

“Malta must change its economic model to deprioritise construction and find new ways of generating growth that do not damage the environment [....] ’We need to change the way we think, we need to change the way our economy works. If we repeat the same things, we will get the same results’ […] ‘People are getting tired of cranes and concrete,’ the minister said, in one of the most candid admissions to date that the economic model underpinning Malta’s growth was flawed.”

There, see what I mean? Not only is Clyde Caruana once again ‘telling us all what needs to be done’ (and in almost exactly the same words, too: ‘If we adopt the same recipe’… ‘If we repeat the same things’, etc. etc.)… but the two separate examples that he brings up – traffic, and construction – are both symptoms of exactly the same economic policy that he himself had recognised as ‘flawed’, almost 13 whole months ago.

Why, for instance, has the demand for construction (and consequently, the price of property) sky-rocketed beyond all earthly reason, over the past 10 years? Could it perchance have anything to do with the fact that Malta’s population has likewise grown by over 25%, over the same time-period? (All part of what Caruana himself describes as ‘a policy that favoured a growth in human resources to enable this country to expand its productivity’)?

And isn’t that also true of Malta’s burgeoning traffic problems? I mean… if traffic was already a problem back in 2012, when our country’s population stood at a modest 380,000: isn’t it obvious that it would only get a lot worse, as we pushed past the half-million mark, and beyond? (Leaving aside the minor detail that Malta’s population is now expected to reach over 700,000, in just 20 years’ time…)

And what, pray tell, are we to say about Caruana’s other example: the tourism industry, which – he now tells us – “will invest in hotels that will remain empty”?

Erm... sorry, Clyde, but there’s no need to use the future tense in that sentence.

The stark truth is that Malta’s tourism industry already IS investing in ‘hotels which will remain empty’, even as we speak. And not only that: but its main representative body – the Malta Hotels And Restaurants Association – has only just published a carrying-capacity report, which estimates that Malta would need a staggering 4.7 million tourists, to reach the same occupancy levels of 2019.

And that, please note, takes into account not just all the new hotels that have been approved (and built) over the past three years; but also, the ones which – as MHRA president Tony Zahra tellingly put it, when I interviewed him on the subject – are still ‘in the process of being approved’.

Now: here, as usual, I have to admit that my own mathematical abilities are not up to the task of providing actual figures: but if we already know that the number of tourists visiting Malta in 2019 was 2.8 million – i.e., around half the number that is now required, to fill all those (new and old) hotels to around 80% capacity….

.. well, you don’t exactly need to be an Alan Turing, to calculate that we must have practically doubled the amount of hotel-space that is available on the islands, in the past three years alone.

And there’s a reason for that, you know: it’s not just the population of Malta (and all the ensuing traffic congestion problems) that have exploded, as a direct result of Caruana’s flawed economic policies… so, too, has the number of building permits churned out by the Planning Authority.

In May this year, for instance (and I’ll come to the significance of that date in a sec) the National Statistic Office revealed that: “During the first quarter of 2022, 609 building permits for a total of 3,203 new dwellings were approved; the number of approved new dwellings increased by 59.6 per cent [!] when compared to the same quarter of the previous year; [and] apartments made up 71.3 per cent of the total number of approved new dwellings.”

Now: why, oh why, would the demand for residential accommodation have grown by a staggering 60%, in the space of just one year… if not because of the same policy of aggressive population expansion, that Clyde Caruana himself admits he was a ‘cheer-leader’ for, until a few days ago?

Well, actually there may be a few other reasons. One possibility is that – despite having only just told us (in September 2021, remember?) that Malta needed to ‘deprioritise construction’, Clyde Caruana went on to present a budget, the following month, that was literally replete with ‘incentives for the construction industry’.

And in case you were wondering why Gozo, in particular, has been singled out for a particularly destructive wave of urban development, in recent years: these budgetary incentives included that ‘first-time buyers will receive a grant of €15,000, increased to €30,000 in respect of properties situated IN GOZO’ [my emphasis]; and that “the stamp duty exemption for first time buyers, second time buyers, and purchases of property IN GOZO will be extended.” [my emphasis, again].

I need hardly add, of course, that this has transformed the once-magical island of Gozo into little more than a glorified (and ‘uglified’) building-site, where everyone (including ALL the islands local councils: both Nationalist and Labour) is now getting more than just “tired”, of “cranes and concrete”…

But in any case: put it all together, and I think you’ll find it raises a teenie-weenie little question. Why should any of us even bother listening to Clyde Caruana at all… as he once again tells us ‘what needs to be done’ (while being far too busy with ‘repeating the same, flawed recipe’, to actually DO IT)?

For let’s face it, folks: if the Finance Minister had already realised that ‘Malta needs to change its economic model’, a full 13 months ago… and not only did he himself fail to lift even the tiniest of fingers, in the meantime, to actually change that model, once and for all; … but he even went on to consolidate it further, by providing yet more (and more, and more, and MORE) incentives for the very things that he himself admits are ‘eroding our quality of life’…

… well, is there any reason under the sun why any of us should take his second belated realisation, any more seriously than the first?

No, I didn’t think so either…