The Malta
The breakdown of negotiations regarding the social pact at the Malta
Council for Economic and Social Development ended where they were always
destined to end, in a blind alley.
Delicate negotiations like these needed strong leadership by the government acting as an honest broker. The government could not deliver. In office for a quasi-uninterrupted period of 18 years, this government is the main author of the economic problems that make a social pact a very desirable action-programmed cure to regain economic growth based on international competitiveness.
It could not perform effectively in the role of honest broker when it refuses to admit its guilt for driving us into the economic mess we are in. The government refuses to admit its responsibility for jeopardising our economic competitiveness to gain political advantages securing its over-long tenure in office.
The government regards the social pact as a means of having the necessary bitter medicine applied as a guilt-sharing exercise, enabling it to minimise the political fallout of such measures on the pretext that they were also subscribed to by the social partners.
This is nowhere more evident than in the insistence by the government to have the social pact effective for the four years 2005-2008, whereas initially it had indicated a three-year time frame: 2005-2007. With an election due in 2008, government wanted to place negotiations for renewal of the social pact on the other side of the next election, fearing that expiry of the social pact agreement before the next election could expose the ineffectiveness of the pact and the need for stronger medicine at a time when it usually tries to persuade the electorate that it merits re-election on performance.
The unions, the General Workers Union in particular, are right to conclude that the social pact was a means to have the workers peacefully agree to carry the pain of adjustment to redeem the economy from government’s past excesses. In reality this is unavoidably so, but expecting the unions to subscribe to accommodate a government that has authored the causes for the economic mess is like expecting someone to pay your dinner bill although not even invited.
So we are now up a blind alley. The government is politically committed to legislate the measures announced at last budget that are tougher than the package that was refused by the GWU at the MCESD. The GWU is practically committed to refuse such measures and, unavoidably, this will lead to industrial relations friction, an increase in economic instability and the general deterioration of our competitiveness while the rest of the world keeps moving forward.
Truly and squarely we are in a blind alley caused by the mediocre quality of the political leadership we have had for more than a decade. We have a government well past its sell-by date. Covered as it is with the guilt of commission, it cannot present itself as an honest broker, firstly to properly define the problem and then to put together an effective social pact without which we cannot get ourselves out of the economic rut that is threatening our economic survival.
On the other hand, we have an opposition that refuses to make itself perceived as an alternative government. Its failed leader has rendered it as a protest party. When it tries to offer constructive solutions, it fails miserably. The economic regeneration plan it issued last autumn is full of useless generalisations. In one of the few specific measures it proposes, the routing of the annual bonus to a social solidarity fund, it shows it has lost its social roots in proposing a measure that will put the burden of adjustment unfairly on those most in need.
Hip-shooting proposals to adopt crawling peg type adjustment to our rate of exchange can only be a recipe for economic instability, and politicians should not discuss rate of exchange policy issues except to re-affirm, even if unconvincingly, the present mechanism. If a change is needed, it can only be effective if applied with instant effect without prior intimations.
In such circumstances it is normally the duty of the President of the Republic to use the weight of his office to bring the government and opposition to work on a national plan for economic survival and regeneration. But we have a President who has carried to this honourable position the historical burdens of his long years as the chief executive responsible for the failed policies that have brought the country to the economic mess it is in.
With a government that lacks both an electoral mandate and the quality leadership to carry the country forward with the painful adjustment process that is necessary, with an opposition that seems to think that it can win the government by default without any realistic plans of what to do once in authority, and with a Presidency that carries no moral suasion powers and functions only for ceremonial purposes, it is no wonder that the country is up a blind alley.
Consanguine
Dr
As his predecessors did when they realised they serve the party better by going rather than staying, Dr Sant should bow out of his own free will, rather than continue abusing the culture of loyalty to incumbent leader by never voting him out. He has already denied the party the honour of his going of his own free will while those around him outwardly pretend they wish him to stay. He should not increase the pain by being forced to go by an internal revolt or yet another general election defeat.
But the same applies to the office of the Presidency. It is time for a national effort to take this country out of the blind alley we are in and the Presidency has a pivotal role to play in brokering such a package. The current President, covered in the guilt of authorship and execution of failed economic policies, cannot carry out such a function. For Dr Fenech Adami as well, it is time to go, not just change chairs. The politicians who dominated the political scene between 1992 and 2004, when our currents problems were expertly manufactured, should go if they truly put the national interest before their own.
Delicate negotiations like these needed strong leadership by the government acting as an honest broker. The government could not deliver. In office for a quasi-uninterrupted period of 18 years, this government is the main author of the economic problems that make a social pact a very desirable action-programmed cure to regain economic growth based on international competitiveness.
It could not perform effectively in the role of honest broker when it refuses to admit its guilt for driving us into the economic mess we are in. The government refuses to admit its responsibility for jeopardising our economic competitiveness to gain political advantages securing its over-long tenure in office.
The government regards the social pact as a means of having the necessary bitter medicine applied as a guilt-sharing exercise, enabling it to minimise the political fallout of such measures on the pretext that they were also subscribed to by the social partners.
This is nowhere more evident than in the insistence by the government to have the social pact effective for the four years 2005-2008, whereas initially it had indicated a three-year time frame: 2005-2007. With an election due in 2008, government wanted to place negotiations for renewal of the social pact on the other side of the next election, fearing that expiry of the social pact agreement before the next election could expose the ineffectiveness of the pact and the need for stronger medicine at a time when it usually tries to persuade the electorate that it merits re-election on performance.
The unions, the General Workers Union in particular, are right to conclude that the social pact was a means to have the workers peacefully agree to carry the pain of adjustment to redeem the economy from government’s past excesses. In reality this is unavoidably so, but expecting the unions to subscribe to accommodate a government that has authored the causes for the economic mess is like expecting someone to pay your dinner bill although not even invited.
So we are now up a blind alley. The government is politically committed to legislate the measures announced at last budget that are tougher than the package that was refused by the GWU at the MCESD. The GWU is practically committed to refuse such measures and, unavoidably, this will lead to industrial relations friction, an increase in economic instability and the general deterioration of our competitiveness while the rest of the world keeps moving forward.
Truly and squarely we are in a blind alley caused by the mediocre quality of the political leadership we have had for more than a decade. We have a government well past its sell-by date. Covered as it is with the guilt of commission, it cannot present itself as an honest broker, firstly to properly define the problem and then to put together an effective social pact without which we cannot get ourselves out of the economic rut that is threatening our economic survival.
On the other hand, we have an opposition that refuses to make itself perceived as an alternative government. Its failed leader has rendered it as a protest party. When it tries to offer constructive solutions, it fails miserably. The economic regeneration plan it issued last autumn is full of useless generalisations. In one of the few specific measures it proposes, the routing of the annual bonus to a social solidarity fund, it shows it has lost its social roots in proposing a measure that will put the burden of adjustment unfairly on those most in need.
Hip-shooting proposals to adopt crawling peg type adjustment to our rate of exchange can only be a recipe for economic instability, and politicians should not discuss rate of exchange policy issues except to re-affirm, even if unconvincingly, the present mechanism. If a change is needed, it can only be effective if applied with instant effect without prior intimations.
In such circumstances it is normally the duty of the President of the Republic to use the weight of his office to bring the government and opposition to work on a national plan for economic survival and regeneration. But we have a President who has carried to this honourable position the historical burdens of his long years as the chief executive responsible for the failed policies that have brought the country to the economic mess it is in.
With a government that lacks both an electoral mandate and the quality leadership to carry the country forward with the painful adjustment process that is necessary, with an opposition that seems to think that it can win the government by default without any realistic plans of what to do once in authority, and with a Presidency that carries no moral suasion powers and functions only for ceremonial purposes, it is no wonder that the country is up a blind alley.
As his predecessors did when they realised they serve the party better by going rather than staying, Dr Sant should bow out of his own free will, rather than continue abusing the culture of loyalty to incumbent leader by never voting him out. He has already denied the party the honour of his going of his own free will while those around him outwardly pretend they wish him to stay. He should not increase the pain by being forced to go by an internal revolt or yet another general election defeat.
But the same applies to the office of the Presidency. It is time for a national effort to take this country out of the blind alley we are in and the Presidency has a pivotal role to play in brokering such a package. The current President, covered in the guilt of authorship and execution of failed economic policies, cannot carry out such a function. For Dr Fenech Adami as well, it is time to go, not just change chairs. The politicians who dominated the political scene between 1992 and 2004, when our currents problems were expertly manufactured, should go if they truly put the national interest before their own.
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