Beyond the Gate

The Malta Independent

 

My feelings were ambivalent.   Half of me was feeling proud and impressed; the other half was de-motivated and angry.    This was what I experienced this week when I visited an old acquaintance running one of the major factories in Malta on behalf of a multinational.

“Why is it than that as soon as these formidable world class employees walk beyond the factory gate they leave behind all quality standards and become just our normal self”

 

Behind the gate was a prime example of how competitive we could be if we are properly managed and protected from our own indiscipline.   A unit whose executive and work-force is Maltese from top to bottom is competing and beating the best of global breed in its line of competence.

 

And what constitutes a source of deep pride is that they are doing on their own without relying on technical or technology inputs from their parent organisation.   Quite the contrary it is the Malta outfit that offers technical expertise to other outfits in the group in related business areas.

 

From the initial research right to the product development, tool and equipment  development including robotics, right to the production, marketing and sale of the products to the end clients of international repute against stiff global competition, it is all done here behind that gate.    This factory could just as well be in the silicon valley of engineering and it would be no better.

 

What keeps them here and investing is not quite the tax breaks or the incentives.  It is the knowledge grounded in their engineers and technicians and the ensemble which works like clockwork.

 

Why is it than that as soon as these formidable world class employees walk beyond the factory gate they leave behind all quality standards and become just our normal self, dirtying all around us and falling into the self-defeating mode of thinking that local politics could have the answer to all our problems when in many instances it is the source of the problem and not its solution.

 

Outfits like this are an eye-opener as to what a magnificent country we could have if we discipline ourselves to carry the strict quality ethics beyond the factory gate to the other aspects of the country’s political and social life.     Just imagine if the couple of tens of thousand odd employees who are unproductively and unnecessarily employed in the public sector or in the protected sector were to be released for re-training to become as efficient as the employees within the gate.

“In simple terms to keep out the Sicilian confectioner we are now about to prohibit new entrants in the confectionery business even to the most talented and creative Maltese”

 

Just imagine how much recurrent expenditure can be saved and how government ordinary revenue would increase through the export based economic growth generated by the efficient use of these resources.    Then we could lower our tax rates to a level to stimulate investment and creativity and would still have sufficient resources (without incurring fresh debts) to support and increase our social services to those who are really entitled to receive them.

 

Yet with a government that has destroyed the general work ethic through the money no problem culture and who seeks to protect its power tenure through irresponsible spending largesse of our tax money, it is prohibited to dream what life could really be beyond the factory gate.

 

Instead we are just about being presented  with a new style command economy where in order to protect the self-employed against competition from EU nationals who take advantage of the freedom of establishment,  the government would be subjecting  to quota entry even Maltese who want to offer competition.    In simple terms to keep out the Sicilian confectioner we are now about to prohibit new entrants in the confectionery business even to the most talented and creative Maltese.

 

Do we really have to punish ourselves so much?