Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1418273
Chris Said is a Nationalist MP and spokesperson for Gozo affairs Chris Said Cyrus Engerer is a Labour MEP (S&D) 12 maltatoday | SUNDAY • 10 OCTOBER 2021 OPINION AS we approach a general election it is becoming abundantly clear that the battle ahead is not pri- marily one of ideas. It is essentially one of credibility. This also explains why, contrary to Robert Abela who is keeping electoral pledges under wraps, Bernard Grech has no issue with socializing the Nationalist Party's. As we keep saying, Labour is free to steal our proposals. If only it could also implement them. We know what to expect in this final stretch until election day. Labour's campaign will have one aim, that of blinding people with its bright lights and colorful con- fetti, hoping people go to the polls with the illusion that Labour has it under control. A 24/7 marketing blitz, paid by the multimillionaires whose fortune was made through corrupt allies in government, will be Labour's effort to hypnotize as many people as possible. But every now and then Labour ends up dropping a few pledges, as if to give us something to chew on. A few days ago, for example, Rob- ert Abela was in Gozo and told us that the island will be allocated €50 million in European funds. All well and good. That's what Labour wants Gozitans to know. What Gozitans need to remem- ber, however, is that Labour has no credibility when it comes to managing EU money earmarked for Gozo. Enough to say that since Labour won government in 2013, it has not spent one single cent in European funds on road infra- structure in Gozo. Unable to efficiently manage EU money, Labour has lost a total of €4 million that were supposed to fund the new Gozo Museum. It flushed down the drain anoth- er €2 million euro spent on six electric buses that were never even switched on. You can still see them, though, abandoned in Xaghra. That's Labour's strategic planning and efficient use of EU funds for Gozo. It's tricky for Labour to speak confidently about Gozo's future without going beyond clichés. Take health care, something that tops Gozitans' priority list of essen- tial services. Having sold Gozo's only hospital in one of the shadiest deals of Muscat's corrupt govern- ment, Robert Abela cannot but ignore the subject. The Nationalist Party is not: a new 400-bed hospital completely owned by government, is at the heart of our plan for Gozo. And we want to make sure that Gozitan patients get the treatment they need in Gozo itself – from the full range of chemotherapy to MRI tests and more. Addressing a rally on the eve of Independence Day, Robert Abela described himself as a European socialist. We're now waiting for him to start putting some Europe- an values in practice, starting with the very basic: making sure work- ers get equal pay for equal work. It has become one of the most re- current stories I keep hearing, that of workers being offered contracts that deny them of any security, with co-workers doing the same job but earning more. Unemploy- ment rates can indeed be low, but the number of precarious work- ers, with unstable contracts and low wages, is rising each day. Labour speaks about creating new jobs in Gozo, but what it has done is simply expand the public sector in unprecedented and un- sustainable ways, and in so doing draining resources from the pri- vate sector. This is what it will all boil down to: who has the credibility to allow the country to start a new chap- ter? The road ahead will not be easy. With the country greylisted by the international community, foreign investment on a down- ward trajectory, debt and deficit rising to alarming levels, and infla- tion pushing more of our families towards poverty line, the last thing this country needs is five more years of the same. The Nationalist Party has always been called upon to fix Labour's mess. And it will happen again. The choice for our electorate can- not be clearer: there is only way to shift gear and that is by having the Nationalist Party leading this country once again. BEFORE the pandemic, 84 mil- lion people across the European Union were suffering from mental health challenges. This is indeed alarming, so much so that the Eu- ropean Commission has estimat- ed that this costs the European Union more than €600 billion per year, or a little over 4% of the EU's overall GDP. These figures are as- tounding enough as they are, let alone when we consider that the COVID-19 pandemic has exac- erbated conditions which create challenges to our overall mental health and wellbeing. However, the road to addressing this issue is not a quick fix, or a one size fits all policy, as many would like us to think. Those in society with a conservative mindset seem to believe that the general mental health crisis Europe is currently faced with, can be solved by open- ing a few new clinics and throw- ing around a few new buzzwords. Those people are wrong. In order to concretely and ef- fectively tackle society's mental health crises, we must start from scratch and ascertain that citizen's mental health and wellbeing is the point of departure for all policies that we advocate for. We must ensure that we implement uni- versal design in all that we do, all that we plan and all that we want to achieve. This is the only way we can contribute towards building a truly inclusive society, celebrating everyone, regardless of their or- igins, race, sexual orientation or creed. And it is through this inclu- sivity coupled with compassion, which can ensure that we move towards a society which fully takes into account our mental health and wellbeing as part of our holis- tic societal organisation. I must say that we are lucky as Maltese citizens – we benefit from a number of aspects which better our mental health and wellbeing every day. When we are ill, we do not need to worry about how to pay for our treatments – thanks to a comprehensive social welfare scheme. And when we are unable to provide for our families due to the fact that we are unable to work, the Government will provide for us. We do not need to think about how to ensure our children can go to school- because schooling is available for all. This and many other factors have been taken care of by successive governments who see the value in ensuring strong social policies to hold up the fabric of our society. But the advent of a global men- tal health crisis has required us to up our game. We need to think outside the box and look at new age solutions, for new age chal- lenges. And while the pandemic has left a very negative impact on our world, it gives us a few silver linings: one of which is the ability to start from scratch and do things differently this time around. Growing up in Malta under a conservative government, I always dreamed of a better Malta. The Malta that I wanted to live in, is a Malta of love: it is a Malta of hap- piness. Where each and every one of us can be who we are, and love who we want. Where our men- tal health and wellbeing is given as much priority as our physical wellbeing and where nature is an integral part of our society's struc- ture. Growing up, I always dreamed of living in a country where our wealth as a nation also factors in our happiness into that calcula- tion. And it is only in the recent years, under a government which shuns away conservative mentali- ties, that I have started to see that Malta foster. And we are indeed getting there – but we must go further. This is because the Malta I want to live in is a place where the jour- ney between where we are and where we want to be is charac- terised by happiness and enjoy- ment. I want to live in a country where the environment around us makes us want to be outside and amongst others- a place where the biggest trend is kindness towards ourselves, our friends, our fam- ilies, and also strangers. Where ensuring that every living thing on this planet is nurtured and pro- tected and where all governments preach, and live, the politics of kindness. These are the real changes that need to be done to ensure we can overcome our next global pan- demic - a mental health pandem- ic. And these are the real initia- tives that must be put into place to ensure that we keep moving towards a better world, a world which we deserve. So on this World Mental Health Day, I encourage each and every one of us to stop and think about how we can consider things dif- ferently. I encourage each and everyone of us to look outside of the box, to strive for a better and more inclusive world and above all, to always be kind. Labour's credibility problem Averting a global mental health crisis