Proprieties

What happened in Cottonera last week illustrates very well why in many sectors things have been going wrong. The episode could appear petty, ranking with the clashes between parish priests and village band clubs. On a deeper level though, the discordance shows how PN leaders hardly care about doing things well if they believe that doing them otherwise might personally give them some public relations gain.

Through the Joint Committee for Cottonera, on which all the local councils of the area are represented, we did our best this year to help generate new economic and social activity in a region that is, by all standards, a depressed one. The focus was on the region as a whole. A synergy of initiative needs to be induced between different localities that share similar characteristics and problems. Right from the start, it was decided to define a few priorities rather than set out an impressively long list, which would then remain just a list. The selected targets consisted of efforts to help get Cottonera into the tourism loop, thereby generating new employment and entrepreneurial initiative; and projects meant to help in the fight against illiteracy, which is an endemic problem in Cottonera. Three to four projects were identified in each area.

Over the past months, the Joint Committee visited banks, ministries and constituted bodies to explain its aims and invite their participation. It was made clear that the thrust of the exercise was results oriented, with no political strings attached. Thus, with the Tourism Authority, it was agreed that the promotion of tourism in Cottonera fitted fully with national policy targets for tourism: For instance, it would help scale down the excessive emphasis on tourism to Mdina. However, travel agencies and tour operators still need to be convinced that Cottonera could be an attractive proposition for day trips in coaches since there are a number of important historical and scenic venues that we, as a nation, have neglected to recognise and value.

So, a project was drafted by which the Tourism Authority along with the Cottonera local councils would invite representatives of tour operators and travel agents to a business trip round, say, two sites each in Cospicua, Kalkara, Senglea and Vittoriosa. Logistical and marketing problems involved in bringing tourists to these sites would be reviewed on the ground, in business terms. Ideas would be exchanged between travel executives and officials from the authority and local councils.

So far so good. Preparatory work between officials went on during early summer. Then the whole project seemed to have hibernated for a while.

Till, suddenly last week, Cottonera mayors were curtly informed via a hand-delivered letter from the Tourism Authority that a "trip" would be taking place in two days time. Late in the afternoon, they had to go to Sliema Creek. There, they would meet the Tourism Minister and would be taken by boat back to Cottonera along with the media and tourism operators for a tour of sites there.

When mayors got this letter they phoned to ask what it was all about; they were given sketchy details about the "programme". There would be a quick run round Cottonera, with short mock-ups of historical re-enactments to be staged in the minister's presence. One mayor was told the ministerial party would be arriving in his locality after nine o'clock at night. Another was told that, maybe, there would not be enough time for a visit to his locality after all but could he put together a small choir and band to welcome the minister's party? And the event would finish with a reception at Rinella.

It is difficult to imagine a more ludicrous approach if one is really interested in drumming up serious tourism business for Cottonera. As is well known, the minister concerned has enjoyed a long career organising media splashes to announce grandiose projects that remained the stuff of daydreams... Starting the media caper from Sliema Creek would indeed give the wrong message: tourism to Cottonera was being projected as an appendage of tourism in another part of Malta, to be associated with harbour trips - just the formula by which to further marginalise Cottonera's potential. The mayors indicated they would attend under protest.

The trip to Cottonera was abruptly postponed on the excuse that bad weather was forecast. Mayors were sent a new programme, for a visit similar to the one that was "postponed", another evening ministerial boat trip with the media...

The modernisation and development of our ailing productive sectors do not require political pantomimes but steady professional work. It seems as if this is no longer possible under the present administration. (Or to be fair, with most ministers, not all. The education minister, at least, has not up to now indulged in any grandstanding with regard to the educational challenges facing Cottonera.)

For what the region - indeed Malta - needs at this delicate point in time, if tourism can begin to flourish again, is a full opportunity for professionals to come to grips with the problems and devise possible solutions. When the first coach tours to Cottonera alone start happening then, yes, that would be a good time for the minister to show up and reap the glory.

Too many members of Dr Gonzi's Cabinet, deeply worried as they are about their political future, seem unable to accept that there are proprieties to be observed, by them too, when new business development is being mooted. Let the technical work be carried out first. Leave the personal and political cackling for later when results are being delivered. But Dr Gonzi and his ministers seem to care mostly about the limelight, much less about the substance.

Which is another reason why on the economic and social fronts we as a nation have been and are being guided into so many dead-ends.