An upgrade of the islands’ public conveniences is in the pipeline, with a decision still to be taken on how they will be managed.
A study carried out by Nexia BT on public toilets considers the financial and economic viability of opening new ones. It looks at different options for building them and for refurbishing existing ones in selected localities.
“Desk research” will be carried out to come up with examples of standards at public toilets in other countries, according to the study.
Suggestions are also to be compiled on where to open more public conveniences in the central area of Malta, what type they should be and their impact on “budgetary scenarios”.
Another decision to be taken in light of the study is whether to carry out more modest “upgrading/ investment” on existing public toilets or to go for a “major overhaul”. The various operating scenarios presented in the study run from public-private partnership to “total management by government”.
The project is to be as self-sustaining as possible through the use of “spaces for marketing purposes and/or similar business activities”.
This newspaper could obtain few other details of the study however.
According to a Freedom of Information officer at the Ministry for Tourism, information on the commercial details of the planned upgrade cannot lawfully be divulged to the public.
Questions from The Sunday Times of Malta sent to the Malta Tourism Authority were redirected to the Foundation for Tourism Zone Development, a ministry appendage.
The request for the study was only partly met. In a reply, the Tourism Ministry sent parts of the one-page objectives of the study, leaving others out “since the report relates to matters which are financial and technical”.
“The document will not be provided exactly as requested,” advised the ministry secretariat in a preliminary notification. Two sections on how the upgrade is to be quantified were exempted from public disclosure through the FOI Act, under Article 32(1)c.
The only financial information provided by the Tourism Ministry on the study was that the cost of the upgrade would be “split per public convenience”.
A 2016 traveller survey by the research unit of the Malta Tourism Authority had confirmed the need for an upgrade of such facilities in Gozo. During the same year, a contract for a study on public conveniences was awarded to Nexia BT.
Read: Nexia BT gets €130,000 in direct orders from Mizzi-led entity
It was under the watch of the former tourism minister, Edward Zammit Lewis, that the advisory services firm was awarded €17,000 by direct order to draw up the feasibility study on upgrading and manning public conveniences in the central part of Malta.
Last August another direct order to the tune of €19,000 was given to the same firm for an “update” to the study. The ministry defended the need for an updating of the apparently flawed initial study, admitting that it was based on “different assumptions” by local councils and the cleansing services directorate.
A spokesman for Tourism Minister Konrad Mizzi, who is a client of Nexia BT, justified the costly update by citing an increase in tourism numbers.
In 2015, both the former tourism minister and the Justice Minister had spoken out assuredly of a public-private partnership in the offing for public conveniences.
However, the Nexia BT study makes the PPP option look less certain while the public is being kept in the dark over the financial feasibility of the whole project, whichever way it goes.
Read: Tourism Ministry refuses to list Nexia BT contracts