Bad drama, worse comedy

The Prime Minister has made his point, with determined inaction - he will not reshape his forest of ministers and parliamentary secretaries. It's not easy to see, though, how he can keep culture and tourism bedded in the same ministerial patch.

Culture is a serious business. Without good culture we cannot keep our heads up on the global stage. Responsibility for good culture being in the same ministry with tourism where so much bad drama and worse comedy is being staged, Maltese culture is bound to get a terrible name.

The tourism drama deteriorates with each act. It is blindingly clear that it is the plot that cries out to be rewritten. Instead the producer plods on, and the audience dwindles.

Disquieting drama is accompanied by black comedy at the Malta Tourism Authority. The first act of the comedy was weak enough. The government, acting against its own policy, rolled the roles of MTA chairman and CEO into one person. The result was funny, but not ha ha. The appointee resigned well before his contract expired, declaring his mission accomplished, but will be paid right up to the end of the contract.

The first act also included a branding exercise. It too was badly received.

The second act fired a fresh beginning, new chairman, separate CEO, encouragement to the MTA board to focus on priorities, an advisory unit alongside, above or wherever from the MTA. There was a lighter atmosphere in the stalls. A wave of expectancy of better delivered lines and outcome.

It did not survive the first performance. Attention that was turning to the rewritten MTA plot, in the hope that it would improve the wider tourism drama, was yanked away by reports of a leak. The new chair, it was alleged, had e-mailed to his fellow directors a draft letter showering less than fulsome praise on the branding exercise. The e-mail found its way into the written media.

The whole point should have been that, if the chairman really wrote what was leaked, he was expressing what practically everyone in the audience plus the ushers felt. But that is not how a terrible comedy goes. The Tourism Minister, unmindful that he might be making a bad comedy worse and harm his own culture brief, was immediately disloyal to the MTA management, suggesting it was someone there who had sprung the leak. Then it was suggested that someone from among the directors who had received the chairman's e-mail had leaked first.

The comedy moved along with reckless abandon. The MTA board wanted to investigate itself. A lawyer was tasked with the job, but pre-empted with a proposal from a director that board members swear they were not responsible for the leak. The lawyer patiently explained the implications of an affidavit. Some directors felt they were being intimidated. Affidavits did fly about. And over the weekend, the board flew off. The directors resigned. The chairman stayed on, at least up to the time of writing.

Meanwhile, there had been yet another leak. It could only have come from the board members, the chairman told his interviewer from The Times (September 30), exposing how carelessly the minister had jumped to conclusions.

The floundering black comedy eclipses the reinvigorated focus that was to be given to the tourism drama. Culture deserves a better bedding mate than that.

The Prime Minister would do worse than let the minister concentrate on culture and take on tourism himself. At least culture would not also become a laughing stock. And with the Cabinet chief to direct it, along with a sub-plot to get the public component right, the tourism drama might become a better production. The buck stops with the Prime Minister, anyway, even if he ignores the boos.