Having walked the whole of the 1.8-kilometre length of the St Paul’s Bay promenade upgrade project on June 13 at 10.30 a.m., one would have expected to see a hive of activity on this project. But, alas, nothing changes as works were more or less at a standstill.

This is exactly what happened with the uncomplicated perched beach project, which was delayed for nearly a year. Unfortunately, history seems to be repeating itself with this project. This must serve to highlight the incompetence of some and also show the serious lack of professionalism from those who get paid healthy fees/salaries to oversee that completion dates are adhered to and the project is finished within the specified time frame and to the required standards, obviously allowing for the unforeseen mishaps which such a project brings along with it.

Along the whole of this project there were only seven workers and just for the record, there were two workers laying the paving slabs near Menqa, one driving a Bobcat, two more laying more paving in the corner with Toni Bajada Street and another two outside the Tal-Milqi Church – one was using a jack hammer while the other was clearing away the spoils.

All this is happening in peak season when both locals and visitors flock to this area and who now have to walk through one massive building site. I would dare to ask the Malta Tourism Authority if they can explain why if a hotelier is completing a refurbishment programme and through no fault of his the works are not finished on time, the enforcement officers would, “rightly so”, swoop on the hotel in question with their mightier-than-thou attitude and would take action against the hotel to stop the works so as not to inconvenience the visitors.

However, when this project affects a whole resort with thousands of visitors, why have the MTA enforcement officers not swooped on whoever is responsible for this project and taken the same action as they would with a hotelier? Is this not a matter of one law for one while the MTA who are paid to look after the interests of the tourists in general get away with murder?