Knights in shining armour

There seems to be no end to the silly season on our beloved little islands of Malta and Gozo. It is probably the fault of the Sirocco. The tourism debate still rages while the GWU one has paused for breath and been put on the back burner.

The tourism debate will go on raging as the figures continue to fall and we resort to pressing panic buttons to save it. The reason for this decline is simple. When in the 1970s and 1980s Malta decided to sell itself to the masses, great leviathan hotels were built and the carbuncles, to quote the Prince of Wales, that are Paceville and Bugibba, were created. Our standards fell accordingly. Even our cuisine suffered as we catered exclusively for hordes of prawn-coloured, beer-bellied tourists of the Onslow type whose culinary expectations never rose any higher than fish and chips. When the government was advised in the 1990s that it should opt to attract quality as opposed to quantity, the MTA of the day tried to have its cake and eat it thinking that it could do both by attracting quality in vast numbers, which, given the stiff competition, proved to be yet another pie in the sky as we have found out to our cost.

Be that as it may, Minister Francis Zammit Dimech has, in desperation, called in an ad hoc committee made up of top hoteliers and people connected to the industry to address the situation and hopefully solve it. That was a month ago when the famous Brand exercise went belly up from day one! Since then, the MHRA has reported lower occupancy which is precisely what was predicted. We were informed that Deloitte's hotel survey revealed "extremely worrying figures".

Short of performing some sort of Witches Sabbath, I really cannot imagine what the High Powered Committee of Knights in Shining Armour can do to remedy the situation to either attract the masses again to fill in all the available beds or re-position Malta as a classy destination which it will never be till the required millions that we don't seem to have are poured into restoration funds and infrastructure.

To top it all, the building frenzy has to stop. There is no way that a visitor, be he or she of the sock and sandal brigade, fish and chip corps or the cippolazz and champagne platoon, would wish to spend any time under whirling cranes, to the sound of earth-shattering jackhammers, in clouds of swirling limestone dust mixed with cement, negotiating piles of earth and circumnavigating potholes. Need I say more? Do you, dear reader, find it pleasant? Unless you are total trolleycase I doubt it. Therefore unless Minister Zammit Dimech's knights in shining armour can do something about regenerating this awful environment we live in, I very much doubt that they will be more effective than poor old King Pellinore on his perpetual quest.

Meanwhile, after all the sturm und drang (storm and stress for those who never heard about the Romantic Movement) about the boundary extensions which, in the teeth of NGO opposition, actually happened willy-nilly, we still have a ridiculous debate going on about percentages involving the former chairman of Din l-Art Helwa, Martin Scicluna, who according to some pundits, got his sums wrong. I am myself innumerate as all my former bank colleagues will attest. Labyrinthine numerical puzzles will remain total mysteries to me, however when push comes to shove what is important is that the ruinous increase actually was sanctioned over and above the already high percentage of land for development that existed already. What Mr Scicluna said was that whatever the increase actually is, it will be that much too much. It is so puerile for anyone to attack this learned gentleman personally, even bringing in the "old school tie and all that" into it, about what he, and every true Maltese and Gozitan, perceives to be yet another step in the uglification of Malta; making the task of Minister Zammit Dimech's Knights in Shining Armour harder than ever!

After all the hoohah about the late Lorry and our George, Mr Polidano's baronetcy and the scolding of Claire Bonello which were sparked off from the Boundary Controversy, we had, for some time, Minister George Pullicino on the Most Disliked list. He has now come out trumps over the Ta' Cenc application by hotelier Victor Borg who received the negative news about his application to construct a little town on the Ta' Cenc garigue while on holiday and possibly getting ideas in overdeveloped Taormina or so we were told! After the EU got involved and the petition presented, Mepa still had loopholes as large as the Blue Grotto to leap through in the interpretation of "limited development". Limited to what one may ask? Well, George Pullicino, like his onomastic saint, killed the dragon that would have spelled the total ruination of the area by decreeing that any development was limited to what there IS already! Brilliant and well done, George! How binding is this decree may I ask? Is it yet time for the environmentalists to declare victory? It seems not.

A snippet in this paper on Friday the 15th stated that a mediator has offered her services to end the Ta' Cenc fray. What fray may I ask? Has it not been decreed that there is to be no development at Ta' Cenc other than the enhancement of what already exists there? Has not the proposal to have 57 bungalows built been ruled out? Maria Arpa, who lives in London and owns a house in Munxar, runs an organisation called the Centre for Peaceful Solutions implying that the NGOs and Mr Borg are up in arms which according to DLH's executive president, Martin Galea, they are not. Therefore this particular Dame in shining armour has entered the fray too late to do anything after the minister's fait accompli. There is nothing to negotiate. There should be plenty of other issues to keep Ms Arpa busy as she claims that she is used to dealing with people who cannot see eye to eye. She could try Iraq for instance or Lebanon and Israel...the list is endless.

Meanwhile we were informed through front page headlines that contactor Charles Polidano is going to be charged this week in connection with the illegal excavations carried out on his land in Xemxija. Mepa has declared that it requires the police to institute "urgent criminal proceedings" against Mr Polidano who failed to comply with the Mepa ruling to completely rehabilitate the area. This case is a decisive one in our legal history which will have repercussions that will determine the fate of every future potential illegal development. Should the court decide in favour of the defendant, Mepa would have to close down and the NGOs give up hope of ever saving what's left of these islands for posterity. The Quest for the elusive Holy Grail that will save our tourism industry from annihilation will be rendered impossible; even for the Knights in Shining Armour working hand in glove with Minister Zammit Dimech.

Maybe this is where Ms Arpa may come in useful in petitioning the Committee of Privileges of the Maltese Nobility to ratify Mr Polidano's claim to the ancient baronies of Sol-y-Mar and Mer-y-Dien after he behaves like a true gentleman and performs his civic duty by calling in his cohorts immediately and restoring the Xemxija site as ordered before the case is actually heard. Then we can actually petition to promote him to the rank of Knight in Shining Armour with the rest of the gang! We will wait and see.

kzt@onvol.net