There's an inordinate amount of fuss being made about a Facebook group originally entitled 'We hate Gonzi and PN'. The youth section of the Nationalist Party, the MZPN, have put on their cyber-sleuth hat, discovered the offensive Facebook page, and promptly sent off a copy to the newspapers, in order to be able to tut over the evil people who joined the group.
I caught a reference to the phrase "sit tal-mibegħda"(hate-site) on the Nationalist media. However, the attempt to try and depict the setting up of a silly Facebook group with a violent or even malicious section within the Labour fold, has backfired. That's because the site did not comprise any particularly offensive material. Nor did it carry any insults, threats, personal attacks or smears directed towards the Prime Minister.
There was no evidence as to whether it was set up by someone with Nationalist or Labour sympathies. I'm afraid that if any of the members of MZPN are on the lookout for incitement to hatred to pin on their adversaries, they're going to have to look elsewhere and not on a nonsensical Facebook group which can be set up by anyone in a matter of seconds (There are loads of groups, from those set up by people waxing lyrical about the Maltese ħobża, to lovers of chips and Nutella). It seems the members of MZPN still have a lot to learn about the dark arts of spin.
Minister George Pullicino writes a blog. It's not one of those gossipy blogs - the raciest image shown has the minister posing next to bare-breasted waterpolo players, but that's about it. There are some travel anecdotes about sailing down the Nile, the minister enthuses about the importance of a gym for all family members, and about potatoes in Berlin. He also writes about his bouts of nostalgia for his "Wild Boy" days - attending a Duran Duran concert (according to him, it was "worthed") - and his support for the Lazio football team.
Like most politicians' blogs, this is meant to show us the warm, cuddly side of the man or woman in office while also giving us a light overview of how he's seeing to the matters which fall within his portfolio. That's why we viewers get to see pictures of the minister with cute schoolchildren, interspersed with his success stories - the latter seeming to consist mainly in the rehabilitation of squares and attendance at strawberry festivals. This is all very well and good. I suppose any politician would highlight their plus points and downplay those areas which they have given scant attention to. Which must be why one of Malta's biggest problems - looming water scarcity - which falls within Pullicino's remit, receives three scant mentions in his blog.
The country is facing an imminent water crisis. It's no big secret. The widely respected hydrologist Marco Cremona has been warning the authorities and the public about this issue for the past eight years, if not more. He warned that over-extraction of water from the aquifer was, and continues to lead, to the depletion of this resource from the water table.
It also results in the increased salinity of the remaining water, rendering it useless for agricultural or other needs, without treatment. Cremona said it was shocking to see how the government was spending millions of euros to build three sewage plants in Malta and Gozo and to treat water from sewage, only to throw it into the sea. The decision regarding the location of the treatment plants was rather illogical as they are some distance away from agricultural areas, necessitating the transport of treated water to these areas, should it be used. Cremona was vilified and ridiculed for his pains. In 2007, the Water Services Corporation, then headed by former PN minister Michael Falzon, went so far as to claim that Cremona had "a narrow profit motivation".
The WSC, The Malta Resources Authority, the various ministers and sundry appointees, did a very good job of ignoring the problem completely and focused their energies on the really essential matters for the country's well-being. So we got a lot of pretty flowers on roundabouts and pretend fountains which look like weak water pistols spitting water out of a hole in the ground. In the meantime the boreholes kept on being drilled and water sucked out of them at an alarming rate.
Today there are some 8,000 boreholes which are registered, and possibly more that are not. Although the government has introduced the borehole registration schemes, they come woefully late in the day, and there is still no regulation of private extraction of water. In fact, the Prime Minister seems to have given his blessing to at least one prominent extractor of groundwater. Last October, Lawrence Gonzi popped on a plastic hat and went over to General Soft Drinks Limited. It extracts the equivalent of 26 million bottles of table water every year from the aquifer and doesn't pay for it. Gonzi does not seem to have been unduly perturbed about this, but reassuringly declared that, "As long as the country continued investing and removing mediocrity then it would move ahead."
Unfortunately, the removing of mediocrity is as much of a priority as the conservation of a sustainable source of water. This was confirmed by former WSC chairman Tancred Tabone. He made no bones about the fact that he thinks Malta will run out of ground water in five years' time, after which we will be dependent on the costly reverse osmosis process for our water needs. If we thought we had it bad with the current utility rates, we're in for a terrific shock when this happens. Tabone was not doom-mongering. Michael Falzon admitted there was a problem which had to be addressed, though it might take longer than five years to reach crisis point.
Despite the gravity of the situation, the government carries on blithely blocking out expert advice, kicking the problem away and generally getting carried away over repaving projects and ignoring the real problems. As for the ministers in charge of the implementation of the non-existent water policy, it seems they bear absolutely no responsibility for a decade of neglect. And neither are people like Falzon. Who wouldn't want to be a chairman? As Pullicino would say - "It's worthed".
cl.bon@nextgen.net.mt