Heritage Malta is of the opinion that the six sites under its management in Gozo do not require a single curator.

Last year it issued a call for internal applications, closing on September 5, 2003, for five curators, namely for Archaeology, World Heritage Sites, Ethnography and Natural History, Maritime and Military History, and Fine Arts.

There was no call for a curator for Gozo sites. It must be emphasised that the curators of parallel sites in Malta were given no competence over the sites in Gozo. This emerges clearly from the call for applications - a copy of which was obtained by The Sunday Times - where the responsibilities of each curator are clearly described. So Gozo is without a curator.

When Minister Jesmond Mugliett was responsible for Heritage Malta and was asked in Parliament about this inconsistency (Parliamentary Question 4690), he replied: "The strategy is one and holistic." This is the information that he received.

Whoever was responsible for writing his answer did not indicate to him that the Gozo sites were explicitly (black on white) excluded from the other curators' competence. Who is trying to fool whom?

Only a call for a manager Gozo Museums and Heritage Sites was made. The appointee will be responsible for the Museum of Archaeology, Folklore Museum, Natural Science Museum, Old Prisons, all within the Gozo Citadel, as well as for Ggantija Temples and Ta' Kola Windmill in Xaghra.

On the contrary, the museums and sites in Malta were placed under curators. To qualify for their post, curators must have a second degree (Masters) in the area under their curatorship - archaeology, history of art, or a related discipline.

It ensues from the call for applications that the manager to be appointed for Gozo is to be also a curator but without the name as well as without needing a second degree in Archaeology, History of Art, or a related discipline. In fact applicants for the Gozo post were, initially, requested only to have a first degree in these subjects and a degree or diploma in a business or tourism-related discipline as an asset.

In a later public call (The Sunday Times, June 20), this was replaced by a second degree in management.

Heritage Malta certainly owes the public some clarifications:

1) Why is it that no curator was appointed for the six Gozo sites managed by Heritage Malta?

2) Is the Gozo manager also a curator in fact if not in name?

3) In Malta, no curator is a manager, and no manager is also a curator, so why this inconsistency in Heritage Malta's policy vis-à-vis Gozo?

4) Why has Gozo been relegated to a second-class area, as it transpires from this set-up?

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