The Finance Minister’s comments about the metro project he gave to the Times of Malta are making the rounds after the Minister poured some caution added with some cynicism over the national dream to resolve the traffic problem with a radical solution.
The Finance Minister has also clashed in the Cabinet with Transport Minister Chris Bonnett over the matter as the Finance Minister is taking a very strict and cautious approach before implementing any measure related to the metro project. Finance Minister Clyde Caruana has two major concerns.
His first concern is very legitimate and it is his duty as Minister for Finances to bring up this issue: the project can cost the government a significant amount of funds that would be crippling to the public purse if the project goes wrong. He is right to bring this element of caution into this mega-project.
His second concern is that the Maltese people are not ready for a metro project because that would imply convincing or forcing people to give up their cars: a prospect that the Minister sees unappealing and difficult to achieve.
The second concern of the Minister is not legitimate and is very cynical.
Supposedly, as a progressive party, the Labour Party has to strive to improve society and bring about progress. with his latest cynical remarks, I suspect that the Finance Minister has resigned himself to Labour’s current populist attitude of appeasing the Maltese’s negative habits, instead of aspiring to improve society on all levels.
If cynicism has become a strong factor conditioning government policy, that’s also a sign that the government is more prone to corruption, populism and reckless behaviour.
The Finance Minister is taking a mixed approach with social-democracy and austere measures in his budget estimates: while the Finance Minister is restricting projects, recurrent expenditure and even capital projects, he is allowing expenditure on subsidies and health to grow freely to uncompromisingly address the minimum necessities of society. His approach implores the government to be more active in seeking private financing for its projects.
Irrespective of your opinion on the Finance Minister’s political approach to his budget, the metro project is a national necessity and also a very significant economic investment. The metro will improve the efficiency of the Maltese economy to a significant extent, effectively improving productivity and increasing local consumption. The Minister may also be refusing to accept that the traffic problem in Malta is a severe economic drawdown to the efficiency of the economy, not to mention that expenditure on vehicles is ultimately consumption that could have been absorbed by local market participants instead of being transferred abroad (all cars in Malta are imported).
Most importantly, the metro will improve the quality of life of most citizens even of those that don’t use it.
The metro project in Malta should be seen as a radical upgrade to society on all its levels and the Finance Minister should encourage and support this project with his expertise instead of taking the easy path and sooth the conservative attitudes of his electorate with cynicism and gloom.
Ultimately, as an optimist, I strongly believe that the national discourse is strongly in favour of this project. All stars seem to be aligned in favour of this project as the traffic issue becomes ever more pressing, prompting even more heated discussion on the project: the metro project is metroing.
Website Editor
Historian and Publisher
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