It seems that despite spending Lm100,000 and probably countless days pondering on the Verdala golf course EIA, Angelo Xuereb still has no idea as to what an EIA is all about.

In his contribution of September 28 he suggests that "Mepa should be responsible to identify suitable sites and carry out the EIA for each site chosen at its own expense". The first part sounds a bit like something from the Prime Minister's regular press briefings, the latter part stinks of revenge.

He goes on to propose that "the government will decide which site is ultimately selected and issue a tender for the development". Again, a PM impersonation in the first part except that the PM is looking at more than one site. But I guess Mr Xuereb is only interested in one particular site for a golf course.

Mr Xuereb's proposals are seriously flawed since every EIA, by its very nature, should include a socio-economic report which, of course, contains forecasts of costs, revenues, etc. This information is usually supplied by the project developer. So I ask: How can one arrive at these figures when, in Mr Xuereb's own words, the tender is to be issued after completion of the EIAs, which means that the developer would not have been identified at the EIA stage? There's a chicken-and-egg situation here: What comes first - developer or EIA?

Moreover, Mr Xuereb should know by now that one has to have in place a very detailed plan of the proposed golf course before attempting to undertake an EIA. Where to place the greens, the fairways, the club house, an artificial lake, vineyards and the other "goodies" makes a big difference on whether the environmental impact is negative or very negative.

Is Mr Xuereb suggesting that Mepa becomes a full-time golf course developer? Or is Mr Xuereb eyeing a consultancy job with Mepa?