National debt solutions

The Malta Independent

National debt solutions

This week, whilst celebrating my first half century, I was accused by none less than the Hon. Minister of Finance that I use my position as Head of the Labour Party owned media company to harm a locally licensed credit institution in order advantage my position as an operator in financial services.

How` people who are so busy trying to stop the worrying growth of our national debt find time to stoop so low amazes me. The newsroom at Super One operates autonomously from its chairman and if anything` receives the editorial line policy from the Labour Party.` But I can`t see where politics come into this news item where the newsroom were quoting sources as influential as CNN reporting proceedings in the US Senate. Can any newsroom neglect that it was reported in the US Senate that a Maltese licensed credit institution is one of a list of international banks having agency arrangements with a Sudanese bank reportedly owned by Bin Laden and used to finance his despicable initiatives`

Who cares that in the Super One News feature it was specifically stated that this should` in no way` be implied to mean that the Maltese licensed bank was in any way involved in any wrong-doing`

How times change!` I remember that when in 1991 a Belgian gossip newspaper reported that a Belgian company which had a manufacturing subsidiary in Malta had exported from Malta arms to Iran against US embargo which Belgium was respecting, the PN media published the report without the slightest reservation about the veracity of the underlying facts. The issue was also used by the PN in a political broadcast under the Broadcasting Authority auspices and I had to threaten to take the case to the EBU in order to earn a few lines disclaimer as a right of reply.

But in this country anything seems to go for the administration to earn some sort of a face saver. Flying back from Tunisia and eating my heart out on how this supposedly `inferior` country is successfully attracting foreign direct investment which is clearly escaping I could not decide whether to laugh or to cry when I read the Nazzjon headlines.

It proclaimed that the Government is taking the national debt problem very seriously .` To prove the point it reported that Lm47000 have been detracted from the Drydocks subsidy, being the financial equivalent` of the damages caused by the hot-heads so roundly and unhesitatingly condemned by both the GWU and the Leader of the Opposition.

It sounds as if President Bush were to proclaim he is solving the Twin Tower disaster by deducting the clean up bill from the humanitarian aid he sends to the pitiful Afghans impoverished by the Talibans.

Indeed the national debt problem needs addressing. It can only be addressed by reining back the fiscal deficit, by promoting economic growth and by sensible privatisation. A tall order which cannot by executed by a fatigued 14 year in office administration a mere 2 years away from the next election.

May be readers are entitled to argue that every drop counts. If that is so then brother Tarcisio you may take consolation that the compensation you so richly deserve as a victim of political violence was not denied to you on grounds of political discrimination but because the country needs your drop to solve its national debt. A problem so expertly built-up by Minister of Finance who has even the audacity to think that I would use any official position to take personal advantage.` He should know better!