Second New Year’s Eve celebration

I refer to your report ‘Valletta to host national New Year’s Evecelebration’ (November 7).

It seems that Valletta mayor Alexiei Dingli, G7 director Owen Spiteri and your reporter have all returned home after a long sojourn away from Malta.

This might explain why Dr Dingli is unaware that “an alternative” for a certain band of people who “did not have anywhere to go to” on New Year’s Eve was,in fact, launched last yearand therefore this is neither“something new”.

Mr Spiteri also seems to be oblivious to the fact that somebody else had already set the ball rolling last year and organised “a New Year’s Eve celebration like other countries do”.

Of all people, Mr Spiteri should know what events are being staged in Malta.

Your reporter’s final comment that “the closest Malta ever got to a national New Year’s Eve celebration was at the turn of the century” confirms that all three have been on quite an extended vacation together or are all suffering from collective amnesia.

Dr Dingli’s assertion that the event, “also being supported by the Malta Tourism Authority”, was, at least at the time this report was published, as yet unconfirmed .

And if Dr Dingli has any doubts whether “a lacuna which tourists had previously complained about” had already been addressed or not by last year’s event held in Floriana, he might ask local television stations to show him footage of tourists being interviewed in St Anne Street, who explicitly stated that they had come over to Malta for its first ever national New Year’s Eve celebration – an event which will be held for the secondconsecutive time this year.