Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1429136
OPINION 12 maltatoday | WEDNESDAY • 17 NOVEMBER 2021 IT would, admittedly, be a fantastic tag- line to put on a movie poster – "Just when we all thought COVID-19 was over… we get 'Foot-in-Mouth' disease instead!" But seriously, folks. Where is Charmaine Gauci, when we need her the most? And why are the Health Au- thorities not declaring another nation- al state of emergency, when faced with what can only described as a highly con- tagious – possibly dangerous – viral ep- idemic…? I don't know. Sometimes, I think I'm only one in the entire country who still actually worries about things like 'pub- lic health'. Oh, well… More fool me, I suppose… But in any case, you've probably al- ready guessed which 'disease' I'm talk- ing about here: even because you can no longer turn on your TV set – or even watch a YouTube clip, for that matter (more of this later) - without seeing symptoms of it absolutely everywhere. Like, for instance, when certain pol- iticians say the clean opposite of what they had only just said, practically the day before… all the while, expecting none of us to actually notice. Now: I've said this before, and I'll say it again… I am hardly an expert in med- ical matters, myself. But then again, I'm not exactly a 'Michelin-star chef' either; yet I can still tell if that Rib-Eye Steak I ordered might be a little off… when it comes to the table positively crawling with maggots… So even if I can't properly diagnose – still less 'cure' – the ailment I have just described… I can still instantly recog- nise it as a pathology, of sorts. It is an affliction which – at minimum – clouds one's judgment, to the extent of caus- ing minor bouts of temporary amne- sia (coupled with a delusional faith in one's own powers of persuasion, when it comes to explaining away all the con- tradictions)… And in my own, entirely inexpert view: it all boils down to a psycho-somat- ic, neurological disorder affecting the outer layer of the lower hypothalamus (which, if you must know, is the cere- bral organ which controls the precise level of crap that eventually comes out of your mouth…). That is to say: nothing to be unduly alarmed about – it is, after all, a condi- tion we all suffer from (usually until the age of five, or thereabouts); though it does have a small tendency to make the sufferer appear a little… um… 'foolish', at times. But that it would also turn out to be highly contagious? Not just between members of the same political par- ty, but right across the entire political spectrum? And that it would even end up threat- ening the very core of the government's economic policy vision (you know, the one that still interrupts all those You- Tube clips we try to watch, with adverts about last month's bloody Budget… over and over again)? Now THAT's something not even an armchair pathologist such as myself could possibly have seen coming. And you can call me a 'hypochondriac' as much as you like; but I find it worrying, to say the least… … especially when the latest victim just happens to be the one Cabinet minister we rely on for all sorts of other, huge- ly important things: like, for instance, fiscal justice; or getting Malta off that dratted 'grey-list', once and for all… That's right, folks… it seems that Fi- nance Minister Clyde Caruana is the latest to have contracted this mystery 'Foot-in-Mouth' virus: and what's more, the virus itself may even have mutated in the meantime… resulting in symp- toms that are just a teenie-little bit harder to actually spot (mostly because they are now cunningly hidden away, in the form of unpublicised 'Legal Notices' in the Government Gazette…) In all other respects, however, the dis- ease appears identical to the one that so recently afflicted Opposition leader Bernard Grech (twice in quick succes- sion, one might add: first with regard to abortion; later, regarding cannabis). And we all know how it goes: "Say one thing today… say (or do) the opposite tomorrow… and, well, just keep your fingers crossed, and hope to get away with it before anybody actually notic- es…" Unfortunately for Clyde Caruana, however, it seems that quite a few peo- ple did indeed notice that little amend- ment his government attempted to hide from us last week: including, inter alia, the Chamber of Commerce, the Malta Institute of Accountants, Arnold Cas- sola (pops up absolutely everywhere, doesn't he?), and even the Malta Devel- opers' Association (which, interestingly enough, stood to gain the most from the contradiction)... But bear with me while I go over it again. If you'll remember, around last May, The Times carried a report about how developer Charles 'Caqnu' Poli- dano – who owed (and probably still owes) over €40 million in unpaid tax ar- rears – had reached some kind of 'secret deal' with government, to slash his debt by around 75%. Caruana hotly denied the charge: "Such untruthful articles undermine the social contract between a State and its taxpayers, by giving the impression that appeasement is given to the preferred, when in reality the Government has embarked on an exercise to collect tax arrears which have remained uncollect- ed for decades, giving all taxpayers fair and equal treatment to regularise them- selves within the parameters of the law." To be fair, it remains unclear whether the precise details of that particular re- port were, in fact, entirely 'accurate' or not. And I won't waste too much time on them, either, because… well, Mr Pol- idano is not exactly the only Maltese businessman to have ever (allegedly, of course) defaulted on his tax obligations, is he now? Leaving aside that Clyde Caruana himself revealed – last June – that "an estimated half a billion euros worth of taxes went undeclared over a 10-year period"… just a couple of months lat- er, we also discovered that both Labour and Nationalist Parties, between them, owe[d] around €5 million to the Nation- al Exchequer… and a few more million beside (can't remember exactly how much) to ARMS Ltd. Once again, Caruana response was un- equivocal: "Political parties will not be spared by government's efforts to step up the fight against tax evasion and col- lecting overdue arrears…" That was on September 14, 2021, by the way... just over a month before pre- senting Budget 2022: which included the Labour government's new strategy to collect all those unpaid dues, once and for all (speaking of which: can we finally stop it with all those blasted You- Tube ads, please? It was bad enough when they were still relevant… let alone now…) Fast-forward a couple of weeks, and… well, what do you know? The same gov- ernment which had only just unveiled its 'socially just' Budget – you know, the one that was supposed to 'give all tax- payers fair and equal treatment', and all that - went on to amend some of its pro- visos slightly… in a way that the Cham- ber of Commerce (to quote but one of several, hugely pissed-off institutions) described as: "a scheme which benefits only the defaulters and does not consid- er those who have their tax payments in order […] This is unfair on those em- ployers and businesses who pay their taxes when and as due. This legal notice seeks only to proliferate an unlevel play- ing field in favour of those who are in default and who are in the habit of using their due tax monies as their overdraft facility…" Hmmm. Now… maybe I'm suffering from a little 'bout of temporary amne- sia' myself… but who was it, again, that owes by far the greatest chunks of all those hundreds of millions in unpaid tax? Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't the list include mega-developers like (but certainly not limited to) Charles Polidano… and, among others, the two parties themselves? And isn't it just slightly a coincidence, that the same people – and all others in the same boat – happen to be the only ones who will actually benefit from this ultra-generous (and 'ultra-well-hidden') cosy little fiscal arrangement; while the rest of us lesser mortals out here, are all expected to fulfil our tax obligations - on time, and to the full - or face the consequences? Ah yes… well, that is just another rea- son why I think the Health Authorities should intervene, before this 'Foot-in- Mouth' pandemic gets too far out of hand. For while Bernard Grech's case may have been particularly severe… its ef- fects were limited only to small pock- ets of his own Nationalist Party sup- port-base: you know, the type who do actually care about things like 'cannabis decriminalisation', or 'female reproduc- tive rights'… But this contradiction – between a government that promises fiscal justice for all… then delivers what look like 'tax amnesties for defaulters' (including it- self) - in Caruana's own (former) words, that sort of thing strikes right at the heart of "the social contract between a State and its taxpayers": in other words, the very scaffolding that keeps the en- tire edifice of the State from collapsing, once and for all, into a cloud of con- struction-dust…. And, not to be too 'alarmist' about it, or anything… in my own inexpert judgment, I'd say that would consti- tute a 'National State of Emergency', all right… Nothing is certain, except death and… U-turns Raphael Vassallo