Minister for Gozo Giovanna Debono has categorically denied she ever changed any contract condition and “this could be vouched for by the adjudicating panel and the Contracts Division,” she said.
Speaking during the Budget debate, Mrs Debono was referring to claims by opposition spokesman on Gozo Anton Refalo who said Gozo was pervaded by an extensive network of abuse and corruption. He alleged that a contractor who was very close to the minister was getting millions of euro in work.
Mrs Debono was allowing her responsibilities to come secondary to political ends. The road to Xlendi was a classical example. With the village all but dead in winter and relying heavily on summer tourism, it had been irresponsible to start work in June, but that was not in the interests of Road Construction Ltd, he said.
The road should have been ready by the end of 2006, but the contractor had been busy working on other projects. Eventually he had been awarded the Xlendi road contract for €2.5 million, more than the original estimate of €1.1 million. Minister Debono had said the June start had been because the road had to be ready by the end of December if EU funding was not to be lost, but this was a lie.
It was difficult to get to the bottom of joint ventures’ scandal in which a particular contractor was creating joint ventures with different company names. When challenged, ministries had resorted to deceit and confusion, withholding information on the false pretext of regulations.
Rebutting the claims, Mrs Debono said the Xlendi Road contract provided that the works be completed by the end of December and everything was moving towards that target date.
Ta’ Pinu road was built according to European standards and there was no negligence whatsoever. The second phase leading to Ta’ Pinu sanctuary would be completed in time at an investment of €7.8 million
Dr Refalo said Gozo’s problems were both qualitative and quantitative. The slow pace of 2010 was certainly not good enough, and even less so when it came to senior citizens, education, health, sports, agriculture and embellishment of the environment. When boasting of about €73.4 million being spent on Gozo for 2011, the government was not mentioning that €54 million would be going for wages and salaries.
Of the €22 million earmarked for investment on the sister island this year, the government had withdrawn €7.5 million, leaving €14 million which had still not been completely utilised. For 2011 it was voting €16.4 million, seemingly increasing the €14 million by €2.5 million, but the total was still €5.5 million lower than the vote for 2010.
Mrs Debono countered by saying that the list of projects belied what was alleged that no projects were undertaken. The Budget allocation for Gozo once more underlined the government’s clear vision for Gozo, which was acknowleged by everybody except the opposition. A sum total of €73 million would be spent and even if this figure contained funds for salaries and NI contribution, this was all towards the benefit of Gozitans.
The opposition maintained that the Budget for Gozo was just two per cent of what was spent for Malta. Such a premise, she said, was based on simple arithmetic without taking heed that Gozo also benefitted from the allocations of other ministries. This included funds for restoration, transport reform, roads, tax rebates for enterprises and increased investments. There was also the investment of €7 million in a new secondary school.
Dr Refalo said Gozo was getting only two per cent of the investment in Malta. Development there had stagnated and would not move forward without better planning. There could be no serious policy for Gozo without investment. Total foreign investment in Gozo by June 2010 had been just €1.3 million, against Malta’s €700 million.
The Prime Minister had hurt Gozitans by saying that exports from the two islands had grown by 33 per cent. Exports from the Xewkija industrial estate had dipped by 10 per cent.
Dr Refalo said that at €1.24 million Malta Enterprise aid to Gozo left a lot to be desired. Gozitan firms could benefit from only 12 of the 23 schemes available. There had been no investment in research, development and innovation.
There were now 38 per cent more unemployed in Gozo, the highest amount in 18 years, and many were not even looking for work. How had jobs been found for 200 people not registering as unemployed, as against 128 registering?
Mrs Debono referred to the credit card company that had stopped operations, saying this was one project that did not succeed. There was a pending court case against the directors. However, the opposition did not say anything about another company which had managed to overcome the effects of the economic crisis, extended its operation to a new range and started exports to the UK.
Dr Refalo said out of the €5 million voted for the Eco-Gozo project this year, the government had spent only €82,000 to date. The new vote of €6 million would not even be enough to construct the promised indoor pool. What was really happening with the project?
Turning to tourism, he said that in August 2008 Minister Debono had promised benefits from the cruise industry. But the long-promised buoy in Xlendi had been put in place only last March, and only one small cruise liner had tried to make use of the buoy but then left. In August a bigger liner had anchored off Mġarr.
More than buoys, what was needed was real political will. In nine years 3.6 million cruise liner passengers had visited Malta, but only a few hundreds of them had visited Gozo.
Dr Refalo criticised the 25-year contract awarded to Harbour Management Ltd for berthing at the Mġarr marina. Berthing fees were phenomenal, but the company had been given carte blanche to do whatever it wanted, including surcharges of up to 30 per cent.
Now the government was promising a €500,000 advertising campaign in 2011 for Gozo as a separate destination, but that was peanuts when compared with the allocations for Malta.
Minister Debono said the opposition could not agree whether the €0.5 million for tourism advertising was positive or not. Of course it was positive, she said.
The installation of a buoy off Xlendi did not mean that there would be an immediate ‘flood’ of cruise ships in Gozo. However, the buoy was a useful facility for the promotion of cruise liner visits to Gozo.
She added that with regard to internal tourism, 4 million people crossed over to Gozo over the past year, along with a million cars.
Mrs Debono said the Eco-Gozo project was not just a buzz-word but a holistic project for Gozo. The government was committed that Eco-Gozo vision, at €25 million over three years, would come to fruition on time.
Refurbishing work at Villa Rundle, covering 15,000 square metres, would be ready in a few weeks’ time. It would cost €2.5 million. Work had also started at the Taż-Żewwieqa waterfront project at €5.2 million.
Turning to the health sector, Mrs Debono said that equipment costing millions of euros has been installed in the radiology section and the surgery department at an investment of €3.6 million
She referred to the results achieved by Gozitan students and said these were encouraging. There were 600 students at the Sixth Form, 900 at the university, 240 at Mcast in Gozo and 173 at Mcast in Malta. There was also a marked increase at the Institute of Tourism Studies.
Justyne Caruana (PL) and Frederick Azzopardi (PN) also took part in the debate.