The brilliant president-elect does not seem to have impressed Allah’s jihadi warriors, the Al Qaeda, judging by the string of racist and xenophobic isults they lashed out at him a couple of days ago. “House negro” , no less.

[Daphne – They don’t need permission to work here. Well, technically they do for the next year and a half, but that’s just a formality.]

[Daphne – The problem is what to do with unskilled semi-literate people. I know for a fact, through my line of work, that there is a serious shortage of pro-active, skilled, literate people who can communicate well with other people, as opposed to with, say, a computer. Good people are being headhunted from one organisation to another. Lots of jobs are being filled by people who are not up to scratch, because employers can’t find the people they want.]

What politicians are doing in Malta is, they are ‘iduru ghal denbhom’. Be it income taxes, electricity rates, whatever it is, the island needs cash from abroad. It is like running a business. You can fiddle with your budgets and reduce the wages budget to put more money in marketing, take from house-keeping to put it to PR. But, what if you don’t sell your product?

The country needs to sell its products. Why aren’t we attracting enough investment – local or foreign? Why are we still losing larger business delas to other countries like Germany, Italy or Ireland? It is definitely not the wages cost as we are still a lot cheaper. I suspect the initial cost (i.e. land purchase) is the main culprit! Maybe we should come up with some incentive there…

But before attracting more business, we need to make the existing one feasible. Let’s take for example, the tourism industry, which if I’m not mistaken still is the largest industry in Malta. How come there are still hotels closing down? I have worked in several hotels ’round the island, and believe me, most fall short of standard when compared to other hotels in the continent and beyond. Maybe, we should start by reviewing the ratings there. It is still too expensive to visit Malta! Yes, flights are. What is the MTA doing? I believe, they are far from being in touch with what our tourists (customers) expect from us. I say it’s time for better policing, law enforcement and improvement of standards, and stop being the ‘laid back’ country. Then, hopefully tourists will start once again coming back to what once was considered ‘the small jewel in the Mediterranean‘.

We also should hit the nail on its head and target the scoundrels: long term unemployed, ‘single’ mothers and ‘unknown’ fathers, the ‘disabled’ and not fit for work and so on. It’s about time we cut these extra unnecessary costs. Malta is only the size of a small town, and some exercises to close some loop-holes shouldn’t take too long.

Maybe now, that times are quiet and will only become quieter, we start reflecting and act on these issues, so that when money is back in peoples’ pockets, we’ll try to make them spend or invest it in Malta. Then hopefully, with the right measures, we will stop hearing about money shortages. It is about time the country starts making some money again, and only then, we can give our people all the benefits they expect and make an even better country of this island.

[Daphne – Actually, Malta has been attracting large amounts of FDI. There’s been a shift from manufacturing to services. When a factory closes down and 400 people are made redundant, it’s top of the news. But when new IT businesses open and employ 4,000, it doesn’t make the news. So people get a skewed view of reality.]

We do have major economic problems (a relatively poorly educated workforce, low female participation, our fair share of cartels and monopolies) but having a budget deficit of 3-4 percent of GDP is not really one of them.

For example, ireland had the first deficit during the last two quarters of 2007 after so many years, and was able to give the banks a garantee of 665BN Euros, as did the rest. No unfortunately I was born in 1981, so don’t remember the era you mentioned. I never said that there were no improvements, but I insist, and it’s a fact that no-one of the last 3-4 prime-ministers if not more, or in that case ministers of finance, managed to show some positive figures. I believe NO ONE really has the experience until he’s tried and tested.

Since the summer of ’98 ten years and another two elections have passed, and we are still waiting for a sign of positive finances. Seriously, if we didn’t manage to even break-even when the money was in abundance worldwide, how do we expect that we will make money now?

All I wish is that Malta, next time round, when things start improving again, will see the light and take the opportunity to really build strong finances.