Rock quality at Ghallis

I refer to a recent news conference by Lawrence Gonzi. The Prime Minister told journalists that the area of the proposed landfill at Ghallis ta' Gewwa has poor quality rock. However, the Prime Minister failed to mention the history of events connected with Ghallis that throws light on a manipulation of facts.

The minerals resources assessment report of 1996, commissioned by the Planning Authority and classified as highly confidential, indicates Ghallis as having good quality rock.

Since then, political expediency has led the PN government on a strategy that depicts Ghallis as having poor quality rock. Indeed, the first report congruent with this strategy was issued by the Malta Environment and Planning Authority, based on six boreholes drilled last February.

However, this report was so unprofessional and full of technical discrepancies that it was rejected by the Minerals Board of Mepa during the board meeting of March 12, 2004. As a result, the Minerals Board accepted, during a meeting on April 2, a recommendation by Godwin Cassar (chairman) for more boreholes to be drilled at Ghallis.

Meanwhile, the government decided only a few weeks ago to remove technical persons on the Minerals Board and replace them with well-known PN activists. This ensures that no objections will be raised at the Minerals Board to the second report coming from the UK "confirming" that Ghallis has poor quality rock.

If Dr Gonzi wants to be credible in his statements on Ghallis, his government should stop manipulating Mepa and its boards. Meanwhile, Mepa should investigate why the first technically unsound report was so quick to reach a conclusion on Ghallis and whether the Mepa official who wrote the first report had any connections with the company that issued the second report.