Joseph Farrugia, Attard
Maltese capers
Your columnist Mark-Anthony Falzon (The Sunday Times, August 23), like a drowning man, clutched to the proverbial straw by commenting on the export of bambinella for a chance to denigrate the socialist government of the Seventies and Eighties. He tried to compare the positive development of the export of our delicious micro-pear to the experimental exporting of capers two decades ago.
Dr Falzon even came out with the fabrication that we exported this to the Communist regime of North Korea. Wrong. We exported it to West Germany at a very good price.
As for the introduction of the caper industry on a bigger scale, our cuisine fared only better, unless you belong to the fish and chips brigade. Apparently, Dr Falzon knows nothing of many things including that of keeping capers in a saline solution where they last for years.
Moreover, a local gardening entrepreneur has succeeded in developing a method of growing plants from seed, bypassing the bird plant seeding. I understand he is exporting the plants to Italy.
Regarding North Korea and our farmers, the latter rubbed their hands with glee when they were given free sacks of the fertilizer urea donated to us by that country. As for our economy at the time, we still have SGS (now ST Microelectronics) with us, for one thing. We were then very strong in economic terms and we did not have the national debt piling up at the rate of about one million euros a day.
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GiovDeMartino
Sep 2nd 2009, 05:33
Mela c-cikkulata Deserta nsejtuha l-ahwa?
C Agius
Aug 30th 2009, 21:40
Dr Mark Anthony Falzon missed the boat completely,, getting up in the morning and have nothing to do and write an article on something positive and turn it upside down is very moronic ! The whole matter is Dr Falzon is that Bambinella was exported !And as a maltese citizen and honest one youy should support every export initiative...issa Cappers , Bambinella , ...l-aqwa li jiegu ftiet flus min barra Dr Falzon !!!!
J Martinelli
Aug 30th 2009, 16:16
Thank you Joseph for reminding us when, " We were then very strong in economic terms and we did not have the national debt piling up at the rate of about one million euros a day".
We also had no water, not enough electricity, a rickety airport, a phone system which came from the bronze age, thousands employed by the Socialist government in order to look good on the eve of elections, no free speech, graft, corruption, bulk buying and empty shelves, two (artificially induced) failed banks and under the table deals.
Selling capers to West Germany really put our economy on solid grounds!
I will be accused of mentioning events of 30 years ago which I should really forget, but, it's not I who brought the subject up!
Joseph Scicluna
Aug 30th 2009, 15:16
Lets all pray that SGS will continue forever and that Smart City will materialize as planned.
B Agius
Aug 30th 2009, 13:40
Here we go again - party political inspired assessments. Comparisons are odious and even more so when they are driven by partisan politics maltese style. People today are clutching at straws praising or criticizing what Governments did years ago. On whether either Party's Governments did more or less economically - I think when it's all said and done they are both cut out from the same cloth - they spin to impress but , at the end, over the years, the difference between them in so far as Malta goes is negligible. They all try hard given the circumstances of the time but they are all operating from a very low base on a number of fronts so improvements are very slow and, over time, marginal. If they are able to succeed on behalf of the country half as much as what they succeed in spin to convince their voters - then Malta will be better for it.
R. Caruana
Aug 30th 2009, 11:24
And you talk of SGS, Mr Farrugia!
Can you tell us what happened to other MLP flights of fancy, such as the factory for 1,000 workers (il-fabbrika ta' l-elf!) , the Spinning (sic) and Weaving? And about the Chinese Glass, Rattan Factory, Metalfond (directed by someone Alfred Sant) not to mention the Chinese Dock?
Capers was the lesser of Labour's misses!