I told you our only coping mechanism would be black humour
I’m sure the head of the House Committee on economic and financial affairs has some very good ideas on how to reduce the deficit. Why, he has a BCom from the University of Malta.
Do please read the article in the link below.
Joseph Muscat has announced that he is going to cut spending to bring the deficit in line. He is going to do this by setting up a Spending Review Committee in the Ministry of Finance, to tell other ministries where they can reduce waste.
He is going to reduce the deficit by – wait for it – paying board members less, and the deficit will go down because the new Malta Communications Authority chairman will not be paid as much as his predecessor.
Well, they do say that every journey begins with a single step, but chopping a few thousand euros off the MCA chairman’s salary is a bad example to use when you’re talking of mega-millions.
It’s also a particularly lousy example to use when you’ve just created a shed-load of totally unnecessary appointments, all of them with salaries and perks, as a reward system for your court favourites.
And it’s a shameless example to use when you’ve just hit the country with the largest cabinet in Maltese history, all of them with secretariats, cars, offices to run, overheads and spending, spending, spending…
Practically the whole of Super One and much of the Labour Party is now on the state payroll, and Joseph Muscat has the brass neck to talk about reducing the country’s deficit by paying the MCA chairman less than the other one.
Joseph Muscat should lead by example. He has rented his family car to the state for his own use, at Eur35,000. He should donate its use for free, or just cut the idiocy and use a proper official car.
They have no state wine cellar to auction off like Francois Hollande did a couple of days ago, but I suppose it’s only a matter of time before the Office of the Prime Minister, Girgenti Palace and Villa Francia are rented out for weddings and ‘dos’, or possibly even contracted out to a catering company for the purpose. Agent: ‘Mrs Michelle Muscat’, Countess of Burmarrad and leader of The High Society.
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http://85.119.122.3:8000/en/businessdetails/business/businessnews/Government-kick-starts-process-to-reduce-deficit-under-3-by-end-of-year-20130530
One of the main causes of the global financial crisis was the use of positions of power to amass personal fortune. Freefall to austerity is two years away at the most.
josephmuscat.com should first start by reducing his cabinet.
He should then start being driven in an official government car. He should dismiss the likes of Willie Willie, Frederick, Jason and revoke the silly appointments made to accommodate the billboard boys and girls.
He should than instruct his wife to refrain from hosting fashionable parties for the high society and should start refraining from taking his wife and children on official business trips.
After doing that, he should then proceed to his friend George Abela and tender his resignation and allow professionals to run the government.
..and ask George Abela to resign to stop embarrassing the country any further.
He should take his wife off the state payroll. After all her predecessors didn’t expect to be paid for being the PM’s wife.
‘ The whole of Super One and much of the Labour Party is now on the state payroll’
Is it possible that the MLP is now being run by a part-time CEO as Gino Cauchi as far as we know is on the Prime Minister’s payroll. What are his working hours at Castille? Do we have to believe that he goes to his office at the Labour Party in the evening?
Perhaps Silvio is already reducing his expenditure on clothes…
Ah, but I thought he was making a collection with that cup in his hand…
Precisely to buy some clothes with!
The first thing Muscat should have done to save cash was to avoid creating posts for his boys and girls (some such as Sigmund Mifsud have two).
Re Schembri’s qualifications and appointments – that is very sad. A Master’s (on its own) doesn’t even get you a teaching job in a British primary school. But let’s bear in mind that Claudio Grech (Austin’s right-hand man) was appointed CEO (YES C E O) of Smart City after obtaining his Master’s.
Appointments of people with no track record, except political involvement, are sinking the country and creating a brain drain.
They need to part-privatise our health care, introduce property tax on every household/business & increase the pension age.
Unless steps like these are undertaken, the deficit will never come down.
But which government has the balls to say and do this? And which Maltese citizen is ready to accept this?
The argument, bluntly expressed, goes like this:
Be grateful because I am reducing by one the number of whip lashes I could inflict on the backs of taxpayers.
Even though millions are being squandered on unmerited and unnecessary fancy new “jobs for the boys”, one of these beneficiaries is going to remunerated less than his more deserving predecessor who is being tossed aside, not because of any failing on his part, but because of a change of government.
You always said they are going to provide a lot of fodder for your cannon. Did you imagine it would be this much?
[Daphne – Yes, obviously. Why do you imagine I would never even consider voting Labour? Because of personal prejudice? No, because of a lifetime’s close scrutiny.]
Very apt. The advert flashing next to the Malta Today piece on cuts in spending, accessed by the link, reads “Disneyland – The magic starts when you tell them”.
Joseph Muscat got to power by deft use of smoke and mirrors. But the deteriorating financial situation is a grim reality. It will take more than a conjuring trick to get the economy back on the rails.
Muscat’s illusions fooled many tens of thousands of voters over above Labour unchanging core vote (which also does not say much for their level of intelligence), but the European Commission is not that easily fooled, as recent events have amply shown.
The PL has absolutely no credibility with the European Commission, and it is rapidly losing the trust of the voters who it fooled.
I noted the ‘kastell in aria’ in the Disney advert. It was indeed a very apt accompaniment to the article.
If the government spends 0.006% of GDP less, which is roughly 40 million, then the deficit will be at 3% as required by the Maastricht treaty. It’s very simple how the government worked it out.
[Daphne – I think the word you’re looking for, Luigi, is simplistic, not simple.]
You’re right.
Luigi, 3.7% less .006% is NOT 3%.
I figure that 3.7% less .006% = 3.694% almost unchanged from 3.7%. In fact it is .694% more than the maximum permitted by the Maastricht Treaty.
Divide 3.7 by 100 and then deduct 0.006 and you get 0.031. Then multiply 0.031 by hundred and you get 3.1. But I guess it was 3.6.
Very saddening indeed!! And it’s even more disappointing when the ‘meritocracy’ call is still echoing from the electoral campaign.
With all respects, NO government around the world would appoint a 27-year-old to head such an important committee, and then again in the tough times we’re living in.
An economist who was always privileged as being ‘the son of the mayor’, who was always pushed in the front line through Pulse and Forum Zghazagh Laburisti, who pretends to be an economic guru when his only experience is within local councils…in Malta.
This post should have been filled by somebody really smart and experienced, somebody with gravitas and credibility, not by somebody like Silvio Schembri.
Malta Taghna Lkoll has a lot to answer, even in its early tenure of office. This is not what people voted for. This is pure circus, with primadonnas changing their political ‘ideology’ aster than a chameleon changes its colours.
This is not the government the people wanted; this is what Muscat & Kasco planned on the fourth floor of the Centru Nazzjonali Laburista, together with their big business party donors.
The honeymoon is over, the smiles and nice suits are exhausted – and the bitter reality is here.
I am not a PN apologist. I am a normal person who works my wits out for a living and who can’t stand the betrayal orchestrated by the Muscats. And yes, I am a proud liberal socialist at heart and in life.
So Mr Prime Minister, please don’t dare to say that you are following your socialist values, because you’ve got none.
Setting up a Spending Review Committee to tell ministries where they can reduce waste? Not original at all. Has been done before – in “Yes Minister” (forgot which episode – 3 maybe?)
Well, the Head of the House Committee on Economic and Financial Affairs appears to be leading by example: he’s even cutting down on clothing…
Daphne, waste and gravy-trains are what all good democracies are about. At least the Nats had the decency to make sure competent people were at the trough but government funds in every democracy everywhere are fair game for whoever is most capable at vacuuming up as much as possible.
I’m sure you will agree with me when I say that Malta’s waste, by its very size, is very small change compared to the vast, uncountable billions squandered by politicians in the large democracies.
Do you think that Germany, with its image of organisation, hard work and efficiency is any better? Look at Berlin’s new airport – I can’t remember how many years overdue it is and how many billions of euros over budget (about 2 and 4 respectively, I think) but it is years and billions and no one blinks an eye.
Vienna Airport (owners of MIA) built a new terminal that was 953 million euros over budget – and Julian Jäger is trying to track down where the money went. As far as I recall, there is no explanation for several hundred million of the excesses.
One Austrian minister spent 10 million euros on revamping his ministry’s website.
The list is endless.
As a taxpayer, I’m sick and tired of paying over the odds for poorly managed state services but I don’t expect that to change in what’s left of my lifetime.
Still, I greatly admire your efforts to change this sad situation in our little corner of the world.
“… I say that Malta’s waste, by its very size, is very small change compared to the vast, uncountable billions squandered by politicians in the large democracies”.
Wrong! ‘Small’ waste in small GNPs may very well be as serious as large waste in large GNPs. Everything is proportional.
The example you gave proves my point. With billions over budget in German projects, Germany still keeps its deficits within Maastricht’s limits, because of the size of its GNP.
It seems that all have forgotten that Muscat’s magical solution to all our problems was economic growth. All his disciples were well rehearsed with the exact lines.
100 days in government and like all their other abstracts, this one has gone flying.
I fully agree with Joe Micallef’s observation.
Joseph Muscat’s mantra during the last few years, and especially during the electoral campaign, has been economic growth.
What happened to this promise? Where is the economic growth he promised?
He needs to be pressed seriously about this by the Opposition.
Earlier this week on Bondi+, Edward Scicluna was trying, in vain, to convince us that the deficit will be reined in by controlling the spending. But he did not set out any ideas about increasing the rate of economic growth.
Instead, he claimed that the EU did not believe the economic growth rate projected by the PN government for this year, and seemed to have accepted the EU’s revised rate, which if I’m not wrong is about 1%.
This is not what we expect from the new government which should be brimming with ideas for economic growth.
So now Joseph has amassed the costliest and largest ever cabinet (and other preposterous jobs) in years. And now – since we apparently have to stupidly resign ourselves to the fact that the Cabinet will not be reduced – he wants to give them less incentive to be efficient and work well (as well as they could, anyway) by cutting their costs.
Why has no one picked up on the Foreign Minister’s interview following the EU Council last Monday?
Our Foreign Minister should not be divulging these kinds of detail to the press. It is one thing to say that there were different views around the table; a completely different thing to first single out the UK and France and then proceed to state that:
“However, without mentioning any countries, he did point out that it was painful for him to hear arguments that lifting the embargo would help create jobs in weapons manufacturing, since this manufacturing may lead to the deaths of many.
“This reflection is personal, but the argument pained me a lot,” the minister said.”.
He should be forging alliances, not pissing off his colleagues.
http://www.independent.com.mt/articles/2013-05-29/news/uk-france-forced-eus-hand-on-syrian-arms-embargo-vella-1713078272/
I have no idea how all those who screamed blue murder at the honoraria have the audacity to speak now. Joseph Muscat has shown himself to be the greatest liar in the history of Maltese politics. Shameless.
If correctly quoted by Malta Today the Prime Minister needs to learn to get his facts right before he talks.
Dr Ghio was not paid the quoted Eur100,000. If the Prime Minister is saying that the new Chairman will be paid less then the last chairman in office at the MCA then he better make sure it is not a Euro more than Eur2999. Such a quick and intelligent solution to the EDP.
I overheard two workers discussing their GWU shop steward/MLP activist/Anglu Farrugia’s cousin’s resignation from their toy-making workplace.
Inter alia this shop steward going by the name of Alessio(?) told his workmates that he got a government job.
These two workers agreed that he deserves that job, because he worked very hard for the Labour Party in the last election.
Taking a long-term employee out of a productive job to employ him in the public sector is a serious matter. I hope his vacant post is filled by two.
Well, what can I say? We deserve this government.
He forgot to mention the great savings made by putting the eternal flame on part time duty
Forgive me but who is the posing toyboy?