The Times of Malta
Friday, September 6, presented a clear example of how the two distinct factions (John Dalli against all the rest) forming the PN are reacting very differently to adverse circumstances.
While John Dalli kept his cool parrying criticism of financial misreporting by using his accounting technical abilities to justify the unjustifiable, the rest lost their heads reacting abusively to some hard criticism which the Ombudsman sent their way the Sunday before.
Maybe they are both reacting differently to the accumulating evidence of loss of support for the government and its policies. While John Dalli's aspirations for party leadership could well be served by a poor showing at the next electoral tests, the rest are panicking in the face of this adversity. `While John Dalli's aspirations for party leadership could well be served by a poor showing at the next electoral tests, the rest are panicking in the face of this adversity.`
Mr Dalli maintains that he had no option but to consider dividends and tax payments by MIA as ordinary revenue. This might impress the uninformed but cuts no real ice. Fact is that the government revenue can be classified in three different ways: ordinary revenue, extraordinary revenue and financing revenue.
MIA pure privatisation revenue amounted to Lm19 million and this has been correctly classified as financing revenue. But in so doing it should make Mr Dalli blush when he had repeatedly claimed that he was so clever that he sold 40 per cent of MIA for Lm40 million and now we know that really it was Lm19 million.
The other Lm21 million was classified as ordinary revenue. This is technically correct but substantially, it is heresy. At a time when accounting standards are moving in the direction where substance overrides technicalities, John Dalli prefers technicalities to override substance. This is understandable, as while technicalities can be manipulated, substance cannot.
The substance is that there is nothing ordinary about these Lm21 million. They are one-off revenue engineered through a structured deal to abuse the defects of government accounting systems. They should have been classified as extraordinary revenue (just as, for example, revenue released from the sinking funds is classified) without misrepresenting the true extent of the structural deficit. `Arrogance and panic have reached explosive limits as the government thinks it has a right to spread with impunity our tax money to accommodate its friends and their friends, while our deficit keeps spinning out of control.`
If it were possible to solve government deficit through such structured deals, then I can give many other suggestions how the whole deficit could be magically resolved through manipulations of technicalities.
But reality would still stay with all its problems. And reality is that the true structural deficit for the seven months to July has reached Lm93 million, up from Lm55 million two years ago. So much for solving the deficit! So much for being on the right track! Cool technical manipulation of figures is not a solution.
All the rest lost their cool. In reaction to very specific, reasoned and well supported criticism by the Ombudsman, the DOI press release, clearly coming from the top echelons of the government, reacted in a hysterical manner.
Without rebutting in any reasonable manner the Ombudsman's criticism, it was rich only in denigrating adjectives that are unacceptable when addressed to a parliamentary position such as that of the Ombudsman.
Adjectives like indiscreet, objectionable, harmful and insulting do nothing to reply to the justifiable criticism levelled at the government. And this irrational reaction is because the Ombudsman, as is well within his right and duty, criticised the very working of the top echelons of the government, i.e., the cabinet.
The Ombudsman is there to defend the individual citizen from abuse of power of the executive. The places which hold most of this power, the cabinet and the OPM, are clearly areas where the Ombudsman has every right to criticise when decisions are taken irrationally or in a discriminating manner.
And the direct award of Lm30,000 to the PM's personal assistant as damages for violence suffered is abusive. It goes against the government's own policy, the sum was fixed arbitrarily and not through the normal checks and balances procedures and was all wrapped up two days before a general election which gives the impression of grab and run.
Arrogance and panic have reached explosive limits as the government thinks it has a right to spread with impunity our tax money to accommodate its friends and their friends, while our deficit keeps spinning out of control.
Friday, September 6, presented a clear example of how the two distinct factions (John Dalli against all the rest) forming the PN are reacting very differently to adverse circumstances.
While John Dalli kept his cool parrying criticism of financial misreporting by using his accounting technical abilities to justify the unjustifiable, the rest lost their heads reacting abusively to some hard criticism which the Ombudsman sent their way the Sunday before.
Maybe they are both reacting differently to the accumulating evidence of loss of support for the government and its policies. While John Dalli's aspirations for party leadership could well be served by a poor showing at the next electoral tests, the rest are panicking in the face of this adversity. `While John Dalli's aspirations for party leadership could well be served by a poor showing at the next electoral tests, the rest are panicking in the face of this adversity.`
Mr Dalli maintains that he had no option but to consider dividends and tax payments by MIA as ordinary revenue. This might impress the uninformed but cuts no real ice. Fact is that the government revenue can be classified in three different ways: ordinary revenue, extraordinary revenue and financing revenue.
MIA pure privatisation revenue amounted to Lm19 million and this has been correctly classified as financing revenue. But in so doing it should make Mr Dalli blush when he had repeatedly claimed that he was so clever that he sold 40 per cent of MIA for Lm40 million and now we know that really it was Lm19 million.
The other Lm21 million was classified as ordinary revenue. This is technically correct but substantially, it is heresy. At a time when accounting standards are moving in the direction where substance overrides technicalities, John Dalli prefers technicalities to override substance. This is understandable, as while technicalities can be manipulated, substance cannot.
The substance is that there is nothing ordinary about these Lm21 million. They are one-off revenue engineered through a structured deal to abuse the defects of government accounting systems. They should have been classified as extraordinary revenue (just as, for example, revenue released from the sinking funds is classified) without misrepresenting the true extent of the structural deficit. `Arrogance and panic have reached explosive limits as the government thinks it has a right to spread with impunity our tax money to accommodate its friends and their friends, while our deficit keeps spinning out of control.`
If it were possible to solve government deficit through such structured deals, then I can give many other suggestions how the whole deficit could be magically resolved through manipulations of technicalities.
But reality would still stay with all its problems. And reality is that the true structural deficit for the seven months to July has reached Lm93 million, up from Lm55 million two years ago. So much for solving the deficit! So much for being on the right track! Cool technical manipulation of figures is not a solution.
All the rest lost their cool. In reaction to very specific, reasoned and well supported criticism by the Ombudsman, the DOI press release, clearly coming from the top echelons of the government, reacted in a hysterical manner.
Without rebutting in any reasonable manner the Ombudsman's criticism, it was rich only in denigrating adjectives that are unacceptable when addressed to a parliamentary position such as that of the Ombudsman.
Adjectives like indiscreet, objectionable, harmful and insulting do nothing to reply to the justifiable criticism levelled at the government. And this irrational reaction is because the Ombudsman, as is well within his right and duty, criticised the very working of the top echelons of the government, i.e., the cabinet.
The Ombudsman is there to defend the individual citizen from abuse of power of the executive. The places which hold most of this power, the cabinet and the OPM, are clearly areas where the Ombudsman has every right to criticise when decisions are taken irrationally or in a discriminating manner.
And the direct award of Lm30,000 to the PM's personal assistant as damages for violence suffered is abusive. It goes against the government's own policy, the sum was fixed arbitrarily and not through the normal checks and balances procedures and was all wrapped up two days before a general election which gives the impression of grab and run.
Arrogance and panic have reached explosive limits as the government thinks it has a right to spread with impunity our tax money to accommodate its friends and their friends, while our deficit keeps spinning out of control.
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