Cloning white elephants

The government seems to be all set to pull out the rabbit the Prime Minister has been suggesting lies in its hat - the big project everyone has been asking for was the hyperbolic billing. Do not take any bets against that not being the building of an edifice to be the new home of the House of Representatives on the bombed-out site of the Royal Opera House.

The ruins have lain there since those of us well into their 60s were mere infants, a reminder of the heavy shelling Malta endured during World War II. They do not make for a pretty sight, though not even they are ghastly as the entrance to our capital city, fashioned with massive disregard for good taste and sense 40 years ago.

The ruins are more like a warning of the feeling of decadence and neglect one will get the more one penetrates into the heart of the city, notwithstanding the work carried out by the Valletta Rehabilitation Committee. Valletta, a World Heritage Site since 1980, is a rare jewel and cut beautifully but begging for thorough cleaning and polishing.

Once a sensible city gate project is finally devised and taken in hand, it must include proper utilisation of the opera house site. Lovers of opera and aesthetics too have been demanding the reconstruction of the Opera House for decades. Their voice, less insistent nowadays, will and should not be heeded. Restoration and good utilisation of the magnificent Manoel Theatre, conversion of the Knights' Hall into a conference and cultural centre and of St James Cavalier into a cultural hub may not provide the optimum venue where to perform and enjoy opera.

They come close enough. Scarce public funds and prime space should be put to other uses. But not, surely, to construct a grand House of Parliament. Nor, I feel, for any government-managed project. The government has established a growing record of inability to execute capital projects within the set framework of time and budget. The Skanska experience is the most glaring and state-of-bad-art example.

It is not the only one. In any case the time should be long past when the government is expected to announce some big project on Budget Day. The Prime Minister, who seems to be adopting a style intended to tease expectation into being, should reconsider the wisdom of piling upon the Brussels folly fresh evidence that he does not mind to be intimately associated with cloning white elephants, even if the EU were to fund part of the outlay.

A white elephant is also what building premises for the House of Representatives on the old Opera House site would equate to. Malta's elected representatives do need more space. Even if the political class continue to refuse to trim the size and cost of the House, and of the Cabinet, additional room could be created for MPs within the President's Palace itself, by moving out activities that need not be located there.

Moreover, much more space for MPs offices and backing staff could be found within easy walking distance of the Palace. The government capriciously wasted an opportunity to use for that purpose the site of the Casino Maltese when its lease expired, providing it with a suitable alternative. There are, nevertheless, other large (and historic) buildings in Valletta on the books of the Commissioner of Lands that would only burden the government with restoration, refurbishing and equipping costs, in the process helping to regenerate much neglected architectural heritage.

In parallel with doing that, the government should intensify efforts to get someone like the EU, an agency of the United Nations, or the Commonwealth to develop the Opera House site into an international centre. A Centre for Conciliation and Peace, perhaps?

That might mean the ruins would remain for some more years an eyesore and a reminder of a terrible era of destruction. Better that than locating some giant white elephant on it. The species does not yield positives and is suited least of all to the Maltese Islands. That is hardly the type of economic input that would energise Malta's ailing economy and lift up the flagging spirits of our society.