Both sides of Father Christmas

The Malta Independent on Sunday Both Sides of Father Christmas

What would Christmas be without Santa` But Santa cannot make it alone. He needs the children to deliver presents to. Santa and the children create the great material spirit of Christmas which inevitably accompanies the underlying religious message of the birth of Our Lord.

This December the Budget Minister has decided to play both roles.` Both Santa and the children. The donor and the recipient.

He is the recipient for the extraordinary amount of taxation he has to collect in the last two months of this year. This week the National Statistics Office published the Government finance figures for October 2001. When confronted with the revised figures for the whole of 2001 announced the week before during the presentation of the budget for 2002, it results that the government has an uphill struggle to meet the revised revenue` figures.

According to these figures whilst in the last 2 months of last year the government collected Lm84 million from Income Tax, Vat and Social Security in the same 2 months of the current year it plans to collect from the same sources Lm103 million. An increase of Lm19 million equivalent to 23% has to be sucked by government from the private economy which is at best not increasing but more probably is in real outright contraction.

Loading this steep increase in transfer of funds to government on the sharp cash flow problems which have been plaguing the private sector for the last two or three years and coupled with the general reluctance of the banks to assist the corporate sector out of its dire straights, presents poor prospects for the private sector this Christmas.` We collectively have to play Father Christmas to the Minister of Finance who cannot resist Twist`s habit of always coming back for more.

It does not mean that it is this way with one and all. The Minister willingly inverts the role and dons the red robe of Father Christmas quite willingly when it comes to certain minority sectors of society.

When it comes to the funding of MIC the Minister has no problem in funding a 200% increase to provide an additional Lm600,000 to finance their publicity campaign in favour of Malta`s membership in the EU.

As Chairman of the commercial organisation running Labour`s Super One radio and TV I refused to accept MIC`s advertising bookings unless they agreed to spend pound for pound to inform also on Labour`s policy of special relationship with the EU. MIC conveniently refused this as they maintain that their brief is strictly to act within the objective of full membership.

I am more than sure that a chunky size of the additional budget conveniently passed on MIC in preference to much more deserving claimants, will be spent on additional` advertising` on the PN`s media in the most classical example of preaching to the converted.

But the implications are far deeper. This could be a covert way of using public funds to finance a political party and undermining the real essence of democracy. While Labour will have to turn on its faithful to garner a few tens of thousands of liri to finance their EU special membership campaign and eventually their general election,` the PN helps itself to easy access to our tax money to finance their EU policy and eventually also their general election campaign.

This is a serious threat to our democracy which Labour must seriously challenge through all democratic means by invoking the provisions of the Broadcasting Act and if necessary of the Constitution.

The Minister of Finance is also playing Father Christmas at the donor end when it comes to our privatisation programme.` Within the next 4 weeks in which there are left 18 working days. whilst many will be on a deserved break from the monotonous regularity of everyday economic problems, the Minister has committed himself to conclude delicate and detailed negotiation for sale of national assets to the private sector generating Lm47 million one-off privatisation revenues.

Boxing himself` in a tight financial corner like this leaves little room for manoeuvring negotiations to ensure that as a nation we get the most from our assets and that we will not have a repeat of the Mid-Med Bank shameful sale. And the supposed transparency with which such negotiations should have been conducted is notable by its absence.` We are not even aware of the parameters within which the offers are being considered. It would have costed quite a few thousand liri merely to get hold of the document which was accessible to the privileged few who are eager to pounce on their Christmas presents.