On Jon Mallia’s show It-Tokis, Culture Minister Owen Bonnici defended the lavish expenditure by the Ministry of Culture. The discussion picked up from the report by the Auditor-General about the expenditure of the Film Commission. The Auditor-General found a consistent system of lack of accountability and lack of accounting standards in the excessive expenditure of the Film Commission.
The Minister of Culture couldn’t explain the results or the value generated by the government’s massive expenditure on culture. The Minister could only brag that the government is spending much more, but he couldn’t bring one single example of a cultural or economic success that was brought by this government investment.
Staying true to their principles of lavish government spending, the Arts Council rebranded itself once again with yet another lavish ceremony with the Minister of Culture present. This was just one of the events in the long series of press and photo opportunities for the Minister of Culture because that is what the Culture Ministry has been reduced to: a prop for the Minister’s political campaign and just another centre for nepotism.
The Culture Ministry doesn’t have a policy about the culture industries or the arts. Fundamentally, the aim of the Ministry is to disburse as much funds as possible to as many people as possible. The higher you are in your political connections, the better chance you have to be a recipient of these cultural funds. Most of these funds are actually provided either to pro-Labour government contractors or amateur artists who don’t actually work in the culture industries. Everyone in the culture industries know this, but no one talks about it because everyone wants this government money. What’s even worse is that these cultural entities can be used against government critics by amplifying and supporting the competitors of government critics, and we actually have ongoing court cases about these matters.
The Minister is also lying about government expenditure increasing jobs in the culture industries. Jobs in the culture industries are increasing due to private capital which mainly comes from family businesses or very small enterprises like ours (Dar Camilleri). We all have credit and bank loans to make our investments and actual and professional investors in the culture industry like myself, see none of the government funding that Owen Bonnici is bragging about. All of the public funding we have received for our cultural products have come from entities that are not part of the Ministry of Culture, and most of this funding has been for loss-making projects.
The Minister can brag and say as many ridiculous things as he likes, but the reality is that in material terms, he has nothing to show for all the government expenditure he is bragging about. Under the Labour government, the Ministry of Culture does not have one single and successful export initiative it can brag about. Not one single success in an FDI project. Not one single success in producing self-sustaining infrastructure in the industry. They did succeed, however in making many pro-Labour contractors who set-up the platforms for the Labour Party election campaigns very rich.
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