Tal-Labour diga bdew bil-pjanijiet ghall-haxi
If you would just keep quiet for a few minutes longer, Jason, it won't be long before I let you out.
Excuse my language, but where the Labour Party is concerned, little else suffices.
Did I hear this correctly on Bondi+, when Muscat was explaining how he planned to get private businesses to pay what he thinks is a living wage?
“Il-Gvern jista’ jgħin permezz li jagħti rikonoxximent lil dawk il-kumpaniji li jagħtu l-living wage fil-public procurement”.
Unbelievable.
Before 1987, they gave preferential treatment in public procurement, tenders, import quotas, permits and the rest to those who supported or financed the Labour Party, and to those who brought in a Labour minister or stooge as a partner and/or gave them hefty kickbacks.
Now Muscat is planning preferential treatment – IN PUBLIC PROCUREMENT – for those who satisfy his partisan political desire and pay a living wage.
Obey Joseph Muscat and you’ll get tenders.
Don’t obey Joseph Muscat and you won’t.
Labour has such a long history of this kind of thinking – including the ‘ghoxrin punt’ to get into university – that I am not surprised how Muscat, raised by his Laburist father and his Mintoffjana harxa grandmother who took him to Mintoff’s meetings, has the forma mentis of a Mintoffjan tas-sebghinijiet.
Two years of producing a television programme called ‘Made in Brussel’, four years as an MEP, and two years as leader of the Opposition, and he still doesn’t know that PUBLIC PROCUREMENT IS SUBJECT TO EU REGULATIONS THAT CANNOT BE TAMPERED WITH OR TWISTED BY A NATIONAL GOVERNMENT.
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This amply shows that instability will reign under a Labour goverment.
What a pillock.
And even if he could twist those regulations, what guarantees is he offering that suppliers will be paid, given his current plan to drain il-kaxxa ta’ Malta by dishing out more cash each week without driving up productivity?
You are right on principle. However, some forms of preferential terms in public procurement are in fact regularly used.
In many tender application forms, the applicant may be required to state how many employees his company employs, how many full timers and part timers, asked to provide ETC job certificates as proof, etc. So it seems that this kind of data is in fact given some weight when it comes to awarding tenders – why would they ask for this information if that wasn’t the case?
Seen in that light, what Joseph Muscat proposed is a variation of something that is already taking place. This doesn’t prove by itself that it would be the right or the best thing to do, of course. But the concept of ‘how many mouths do you feed’ is in fact taken into consideration for public procurement selection, at least in some cases.
[Daphne – I don’t believe this. THAT’S DONE TO ASSESS THE STRENGTH OF THE COMPANY AND ITS ABILITY TO DELIVER AND NOT TO FIND OUT HOW MANY MOUTHS YOU FEED SO THAT YOU MAY BE REWARDED ACCORDINGLY. BONGU MALTA SOCJALISTA. I would have thought that much is obvious, but I must have forgotten just how much our mentality has been conditioned by living in a protectionist environment and a developing economy.]
Oh, I’m not a socialist, I can tell you that. I’m more what you might call right wing in certain aspects.
[Daphne – I’m not suggesting you are. I’ve read some other comments you have sent in. Bongu Malta Socjalista is just a description of the way our thinking has been conditioned, whether we are socialist or not.]
I just said that this information is indeed required sometimes. Whether it is for the reason you stated, or for other reasons, who knows, really? I’ve also seen tender specifications where it was blatantly obvious they were meant to discourage applicants as much as possible – as in being totally one sided and unreasonable, so much that you cannot help but think that the succesful ‘applicant’ had already been selected beforehand.
[Daphne – That is now illegal and can be challenged.]
So forget that everything is always fair and crystal clear in these things, or that it always does what it says on the tin.
And by the way, who does Tonio Fenech bend over backwards for when it comes to safeguarding jobs? Any number of micro enterprises who employ just a handful of people, or a factory with 100, 200 or more employees who’s threatening to sack half its workforce or to close down, if the government does not help them out? Do you really believe that how many mouths an enterprise feeds is never a political issue?
[Daphne – Bongu Malta Socjalista thinking again. If that were the case, we’d have kept the Drydocks alive on a drip for another lifetime. You’re confusing two issues: the political necessity of keeping employers here and employing people, and the fair-and-impartial requirement in public procurement, which doesn’t allow states to reward companies who employ lots of people by giving them more business.]
PS: I don’t believe in a nanny state or a protectionist mentality, either.
About Tonio Fenech and small enterprises vs the big ones, Spartin Plug is correct. However I am afraid that Tonio Fenech was misled and given the wrong information, still he should have done some research himself.
As that butter commercial goes ” Some things NEVER change”
John, I think what you refer to is a whisky ad but the butter commercial also makes sense here – “I cannot believe it’s new lejbor”
So that is what he meant when he said he wanted a progressive party! From ‘tbazwar naqa l hemm u naqa l haw’ to ‘tbazwir shih kullimkien’
KumpaNNiji with two “N”s
[Daphne – Who says? It’s a corruption of the English ‘company’.]
The way it’s pronounced, that would be two ‘j’s and one n.
The ‘j’ at the end of a word is almost always prolonged. See hamrija, tarbija, Bidnija.
From the Italian “compagnia”.
[Daphne – I very much doubt it, given that formal commercial language entered Maltese through English.]
The Italian word for ‘company’ is not ‘compagnia’ but ‘societa`’, which proves Daphne’s point.
It’s “societa” in Italian anyway, not compagnia.
Could be. But on the other hand, it would seem that in their vast majority those which came entered Maltese through English have remained English.
Look at the banking sector as an example.
No, JP Bonello, in Italian ‘company’ is ‘societa`’ (also sometimes ente, societa commerciale) not ‘compagnia’. Daphne is correct. It is in fact a loan word, so to speak, from the English language, and entered the vernacular thanks to the Commercial Partnerships Ordinance, which has since been repealed and replaced by the Companies Act.
KUMPANIJI. That is the correct word.
Joseph’s idea is very dangerous.
In the first place, it could be used to disguise state aid. OK, so Airmalta will introduce a living wage, and then the state gives fiscal incentives to Airmalta.
Moreover, this could result in some creative ways to deceive the public procurer. Companies can restructure themselves into group structures whereby employees paid a salary equivalent to a living wage would be moved into the bidding company.
Joseph also suggested that if in 10 or so years the EU introduced the living wage, then we would have to react. I do not believe that the EU will ever introduce anything like a living wage, when one considers that in some eastern EU countries there is still relative poverty, and especially because Europe is facing very difficult challenges in competing on global markets – China factor among others. It is another mistake of European proportions by Joseph Muscat, after his support of the NO campaign in 2003.
Living wage = CET. It should prove Joseph Muscat’s downfall. His only intention is to raise workers’ expectations on the eve of the budget.
Maryanne, I agree with you. But you can also change that last bit to “eve of the elections” when they come.
*Joseph Muscat’s* downfall? Are you serious? It’ll screw up everything and everyone else first.
CET didn’t knock Sant out of government. Mintoff did.
No amount of fiscal incentives would compensate companies for the huge increase in labour costs if they were to give an increase of some 50€ a week to their employees.
Moreover, if the living wage is to be voluntary, what’s the point of the PL promising it? Even today, any employer who wishes to give his workers hefty bonuses is free to do so.
He is nothing more than a failed beginner.
Refer to Chapter 386 Laws of Malta – Att dwar il-Kumpanniji
http://justiceservices.gov.mt/LOM.aspx?pageid=27&mode=chrono&gotoID=386&lid=2
[Daphne – Yes, well, I’m told to write ‘ticer’, too.]
Refer to records of court proceedings (such as those published on this blog). X’ABZ mill-Akkademja u viva n-neologismi u l-Malti “mictub” tal-20ijiet. To think that it was the judiciary that pushed for the recognition of Maltese as an official language.
Daphne, I feel that you are reading too much into what Muscat says.
I am not a psychologist, but I have had to listen to thousands upon thousands of ordinary folk explaining their problems to me over the past 45 years.
This guy does not have a clue what he is talking about. He is so shallow and superficial that it is unreal.
I consider him totally incapable even of planning a “haxja” – no pun meant, seriously.
anthony;
the two expressions ‘piss-up in a brewery’ and ‘orgy in a whorehouse’ sprang to mind when I read your last statement.
Yesterday during Bondi +, ”he began without knowing what he was going to say, and finished without knowing what he had said”. as said by Rousseau.
He needs to spend more time with Gozitans. It will help him adopt their wise practice of counting to 10 before he speaks. Still I doubt if that will solve his problem!
You are right that it will not solve his problem. He would not know what to say even if he counted until the cows come home.
Grey matter cannot be generated while you count.
You either have it there or you don’t. It is as simple as that.
He should have been left in Brussels. He would have been completely innocuous there. He would also have been very happy amongst a generally mediocre lot.
Joseph Micallef, point is, CAN Joseph Muscat count to 10?
@La Redoute
“CET didn’t knock Sant out of government. Mintoff did.”
You’re right but CET helped a lot.
Basta bil-kaxxa f’idu, imbagħad lanqas għ ma kienu kapaċi jiktbu sew. X’qamel.
Our worry should be that if the next general election is won by LP we will be in a worse situation than under Dr Alfred Sant. Oh how I wish that Dr George Abela is still in the LP. No wonder that Joseph Muscat accepted as president.
The living wage concept, Joseph Muscat wants us to believe he’d create, is still waiting for Harry Houdini’s approval.
The only thing he is capable of is going round in circles without giving an answer to difficult questions he is asked. He qualifies for the title of ‘the fugitive’.
It is advisable that Prime Minister Gonzi takes the Gozitan advice, raised by Joseph Micallef, when he comments about the black dust in Fgura and its surroundings. Definitely he did not count to 10 before he spoke and in this case he cannot say that it is a perception of the residents.
Spartin Plug(k) is completely wrong and Daph only partially correct. First off, public procurement is, today, a science on its own merits and though the administration may attempt (and I am not saying that it does or that it doesn’t) to award contracts in favour of one bidder over another, one has to bear in mind that eventually all aspects of the administration’s decision here is subject to one form or other of scrutiny – and therefore, not only by the local PCC or the Courts, but action may also be taken by the Commission acting on a complaint against a state party award before the ECJ.
The ECJ has given us extensive, detailed and volumnious jurisprudence on the subject and challenges to state decisions are frequent. This is so, to ensure that this aspect of public life is transparent as possible. the only caveat, so to sepak, is that for the present time, the ECJ will rule on whether the award was given fairly according to the State party’s regulations – and this is where a State administration has some room to manoeuver.
Spartin Plug(k) should really check his facts before he speaks, for in reality, in a call to tender much more detailed information is asked than merely the number of employees, details such as the state of liquidity of the company, audited accounts of the last five years, evidence of the declared time of effective operation in the relevant market sector, foreign partners and their liquidity, financial guarantees for penalties, technical empoyee declarations of qualification, skill and experience – not merely C.V.s but evidence in support of, allocation of resources for each part of the tender project (in cases of contracts of works – these are the most lucrative)
So, it is silly to think that an award to tender would be profferred on the basis of ‘how many mouths you feed’. It is, in my view, naive at best, to think that that would be the reason for asking the number of employees. The administration would want to assses the robustness of the company or individual tendering to ensure, as much as possible, that it would be able to deliver on its obligations once the tender is awarded, and this assesment is independent of the basic criteria required to award the tender.
In other words, apart from those thresholds that must be met for the tender to be awarded (e.g. lowest in price, most technologically advanced etc) the administration is also under a quasi-obligation to carry out a due diligence exercise to ensure that the winner will be able to deliver. This is especially important NOW in the light of EU Funding for government projects.
When funds are made available under a particular EU Axis and a call to tender follows and the tenderer fails to deliver, not only is the project not completed to the detriment of the public, but the fund allocation will, if the deadline established by the Commission for project implementation would have lapsed, be lost – if not forever for a very very long time.
This having been said, public procurement is a very complex sphere of public life, over which numerous tomes and judgements, making for very interesting reading, have be written. Spartin Plug(k) would be well advised to start reading about the subject so that he doesn’t continue thinking like – sorry to disagree with you here Daph – a fly!
Oops .. my reply was meant for erskinmay. I hope I clicked the right link when posting it.
Sure, it’s a very complicated science with loads of tomes and theories having been thrown at it. Big effing deal. So that’s supposed to guarantee that how it is actually practised is always fair and transparent, and is always immune to political influence or personal agendas?
Right .. just like the law is always applied equally to everyone, and all politicians and lawyers are completely honest and selfless, and all magistrates behave demurely, and no public office was ever appointed according to political sympathy, and nothing is ever hidden from the public, etc.
Irrespective of how many legal clauses are written (and often the greater the complication, the greater the possibility of twisting the rules and inventing loopholes – lawyers would be unemployed otherwise), human nature remains what it is.
If you think that anything heavily regularised on paper by the boffins and bean counters in the EU guarantees the epitome of rectitude in practice, then we could take a look at Italy’s track record in public procurement, just as an example.
That’s one of the founding members of the EU, one of the first countries to adopt the Euro currency, and a G8 country no less. So tell me that there has never been any shady business in their public procurement contracts, be it of a political or more mercenary nature. Go on, I can do with a good laugh.
Shall we say that my particular example relative to the number of employees was incorrect on paper? Big deal. I stand corrected on that if that it tickles you.
But all this is just a diversion from the main point, namely that the “haxi” Daphne alluded to, including the variant coming from political pressures, has always been there and will always be in some form or another, irrespective of Joe Muscat’s ideas, be they crazy or not. To summarise it in the vernacular and tie in with the title of this article: “min irid jahxi u qieghed fil-posizzjoni li jista’ jahxi, ha jsib kif xorta wahda”.
Granted, putting discriminatory measures in the rules themselves would be even worse. I’m not saying that Joseph Muscat’s particular proposal is a sane one either, though I agree with the general concept of tax benefits to help employment and the economy in general.
PS: And while this administration finally had the cojones to do away with the dockyard cancer, let’s not forget that it took them over 20 years of being in government to do it. That’s the power of certain political issues for you.