An air of despondency

An air of despondency seems to hang around Maltese citizens with the mood of the public taking a drastic turn to the worse over the past year.

This was confirmed by the latest Eurobarometer survey that shows that half of the people are now saying that things are heading in the wrong direction, up from just 13% this time a year ago. At the same time, the number of people saying that things in Malta are going in the right direction has plummeted to 28%.

The same survey found that 85% of Maltese expect their standard of living to decrease over the next year and 46%, believe that their living conditions will be worse this time next year. There is also what seems to be a decrease in optimism over Malta’s economy, with 53% now saying that the country’s economy will be in a worse state in a year’s time.

This is actually quite normal with people’s perception of their government when the same party has been given a third successive mandate. Governments can try to satisfy the expectations of most people but they cannot keep satisfying the majority all the time.

The Prime Minister thinks that handing over cheques left, right and centre and refusing to take steps that upset people – even though needed – will solve the problem. It’s all a matter of polls for him!

In actual fact, the Robert Abela administration is proving to be visionless and interested only in keeping the ‘status quo’. This is not easy and is well nigh impossible over a long period of time.

As a result, Labour spokesmen are now venturing more in the area of criticism of government policies.

Last Sunday, former Labour Deputy leader, Joe Brincat dedicated his full-page contribution in the GWU’s it-Torca to carry out a not so veiled attack on the going-ons in Identity Malta - recently converted to Identità Malta. Brincat tried to sugar the pill by implying that things in the process of giving residence permits to third world country nationals had been bad even under the PN administration. But with the number of third world nationals working in Malta exploding under Labour since Joseph Muscat became Prime Minister, surely the number of cases being ‘resolved’ by inadequate and, Brincat claims, discriminatory treatment have obviously balooned.

Brincat even alleges that one Maltese male who married a foreigner – probably from a third world country – and who was pilloried by Identità Malta was even told that he should have married a Maltese woman if he wanted to avoid the hassle that he was experiencing!

Earlier this week a Labour backbencher in the House of Representatives – Malcolm Paul Agius Galea – delivered a speech in which he implied that the generous energy subsidy could be leading to greater – and wasteful – energy use. He was speaking about climate change but the underlying criticism of the current energy subsidy system was palpable.

Agius Galea said that with the current system of subsidies, there is a risk that people are nonchalant and think they can waste energy because they can afford to pay the bills. Meanwhile energy consumption, and hence the cost of subsidies, is exploding.

The Labour MP suggested information campaigns to encourage people to waste less energy. The obvious way to reduce waste is for government to subsidise a reasonable quota of energy consumption for each person, above which consumption is not subsidised. But Agius Galea did not venture to say as much and the Prime Minister thinks he should not tempt the gods and introduce such a system.

It is not insignificant that such criticism coming from within a party in government, has started to emanate from the closed walls surrounding the party’s structure and ‘leak’ into the public arena.

The air of despondency continues to increase.

Jobs for MPs

Andy Ellul, Labour Whip and Parliamentary Secretary for Social dialogue reacted to the Opposition’s parliamentary motion on Rosianne Cutajar’s consultancy with the Institute for Tourism Studies by saying one should also look into whether PN MPs turn up for their government jobs.

The PN motion followed the conclusion of the Auditor General to the effect that the way Cutajar, then a Labour MP, was given her ITS job was “fraudulent”, “irregular” and “in breach of all policies and procedures”.

Ellul’s misleading statement did not distinguish between MPs who are employed by government and were subsequently elected to the House of Representatives and those who were given a ‘job’ with a state entity after they were elected to parliament, as in Cutajar’s case.

Since the right to stand for election as an MP was extended to several ranks within the civil service, many anomalies ensued. An example is the case of doctors employed by government, becoming MPs while their work remains under the aegis of the Minister of Health.

The ‘solution’ to this problem has been found by government closing an eye for MPs who do not attend work in the public service for the hours for which they are paid.

In my opinion, such employees should be totally exonorated from their state job and given half pay so long as they are MPs.

Tackling femicide

The phenomenon of femicide exists in all countries and neither Malta nor Italy is the worst offender among EU member states. I understand Greece takes that dishonour, although there is no standard definition or comparable data between countries.

A recent case in Italy led to several protests after the sister of one femicide victim shared her grief on the social media. Usually in such cases relatives of femicide victims in Italy shun publicity.

Elena Cecchettin, whose 22-year-old sister, Giulia, was the latest femicide victim in Italy, reacted differently. She used mainstream and social media to denounce the patriarchal values she blamed for the deaths of her sister and many of the other 105 women murdered in Italy in the previous year.

The reaction of Giorgia Meloni’s government is intriguing. Italy’s Minister responsible for education earmarked €15 million for relationship education in schools.

Femicide is a cultural issue and cultural issues should be tackled with reforms backed by education. Malta should copy Italy and tackle femicide when the would-be offenders of the future are still at school.