To ignore sustainable development completely is bad enough. To make a mockery of it is worrying indeed. But to reduce it to a mere buzzword should be a matter of concern to us all.

Unfortunately, the past and not so distant track record of Mepa and the conduct of this Administration, even when the Prime Minister assumed "sustainable development" as part of his brief following the last general election, should go a long way towards proving this point.

That in the coming days we might end up with a Minister for Sustainable Development - with the title pegged to another portfolio, be it tourism or any other subject under the sun - is immaterial and irrelevant to the whole issue. I very much fear we will be merely perpetrating one big hollow illusion. I have refrained from using the word "political con game" to be politically correct!

The other day, I attended the launch of The Institute for Sustainable Development, a laudable effort in its own right. Until I came to realise that, as things stand, it is so far very much a one-man (or woman) band or operation, although the Rector of the University has also assumed chairmanship of the said institute and there are some influential top brass on its board of directors.

The launch programme provided interesting fare but I could not but squirm with embarrassment when comparing and contrasting the skimpy and skeletal set up of the institute so far with the accompanying pomp: an addresses by the Rector, an address and official launch by the Prime Minister and an otherwise very interesting keynote lecture by Michael Batty, who is also a Bartlett professor of planning and director of the Centre for Advanced Spatial Analysis. I found it ironic that we were lectured by a true expert in advanced spatial analysis at a time when, for all intents and purposes, the government seems to have sidelined the opposition's suggestions that it should modernise its thinking and revamp its approach to planning by going for spatial planning as most EU jurisdictions have done rather than limiting itself to the old and hackneyed concept of structure plans.

There are two very worrying aspects regarding the government's approach to sustainable development so far. And this has nothing to do with the institute which might make the grade, after all.

Although people might be working on it together with the NSO, we are one of the very few countries without any sustainable development indicators to date.

According to the latest count - a reply in Parliament by the Prime Minister last June 2 - there are only three officials at the Office of the Prime Minister working on sustainable development issues who, judging by what he says, are not even working full time on this demanding and challenging brief.

When I asked the Prime Minister whatever happened to the National Sustainable Development Strategic Policy document, which the National Commission for Sustainable Development had originally asked Cabinet to consider and adopt, I was told that the strategy's recommendations were accepted as part of an exercise wherein a more effective means was being sought as to how the strategy could be implemented. Sounds pretty Orwellian, doesn't it? Others might argue that it is more of a stock-in-trade reply to most pointed and barbed parliamentary questions.

Where things start becoming confusing is when I asked the Prime Minister about the future role of the said commission.

He told me in no uncertain terms that the commission's task was merely that of formulating a strategy for consideration by the government and that it was now the responsibility of the ministers concerned to implement it while the OPM was taking full responsibility to implement the said strategy.

Adding more salt to the wound, the Prime Minister confirmed in the House that the commission had last met in 2006 (three times) while no meetings were held in 2007 and 2008. I am almost sure the same applies for 2009!

The Prime Minister seems to have been misinformed about the actual role of the commission because part IV of the Environment Protection Act as it stands so far makes it clear that the preparation of the national strategy is only one role out of seven. The commission's functions are continuous and should have not stopped at the stage of the finalisation of the national strategy document.

According to the law, the commission should have been chaired by the Prime Minister himself with two members of the House, one appointed by the Prime Minister and the other by the Leader of the Opposition.

From perusal of the draft Bill on the would-be "revamped" Mepa it seems there might be no breach at all of the current legislative provisions regarding the said commission for the simple reason that part IV, which deals with the said commission, seems to have apparently vanished into thin air.

When the Mepa debate commences in the next few days in Parliament expect the word sustainable development to be mentioned in practically every speech from the government benches. What they really mean by it might be another matter altogether!

But then it should be enough to keep buzzword fetishists happy. Something to throw repeatedly into the soup can, together with such meaningless words as "transparency", "accountability", "enforcement" and "efficiency", which, as everyone knows, have long been devalued by this Administration, even though joining the euro should not have made devaluation allowable and permissible anymore!

Mr Brincat is Shadow Minister for the Environment, Sustainable Development and Climate Change.

Brincat.leo@gmail.com

www.leobrincat.com