LETTERS | Sunday, 15 July 2007

Ghadira beach will remain public

Flemming Jensen, Managing Director, Mellieha Holiday Centre

Reference is made to James Debono’s article titled “GWU company wants private beach at Ghadira” published with prominence of the front page of the 8 July 2007 issue of your newspaper.
You may wish to note that your correspondent made several inaccurate statements which our company feels compelled to address. Mellieha Holiday Centre Limited is 99.30% owned by DFF Malta Holding Limited. Indeed, the General Workers’ Union retains a mere single share in the company and is not entitled to receive a dividend or other compensation for the share held. Therefore, our company cannot with sincerity be called “GWU-owned”. It is a company set up in 1975 with Danish direct investment. The GWU played the role of a catalyst, thereby leading to the creation of new jobs in the developing inbound tourism industry.
Mellieha Holiday Centre remains committed to supporting the local economy and the local people and we would thus like to assure you and your readers that the company never intended to “annex a chunk of Malta’s most popular beach” for the exclusive use of our guests. Our company was granted the beach concession in question by the Government in 1986 and has left it in its natural state (except for building a connecting tunnel). In later years our guests have requested better facilities to compare to many other beach concessions in Ghadira and it was to satisfy these that we applied for MEPA permission. As in the past the beach concession will remain open to all. Mellieha Holiday Centre will extend its services to all those who honour us with their custom at the concession but we will not hinder the public’s access to the beach.
Our company’s tourist facilities have always been developed and operated in line with a vision that is conscious of the local community and environment. We believe that this can be confirmed by the countless Maltese families that have visited and enjoyed our amenities over the years, as well as by the many Maltese families who owe their livelihood to the holiday centre.

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Editorial note:

Though the GWU only have a miserly percentage in the Mellieha Holiday Centre, it was the GWU and its top officials that lobbied with the government for the extension of bungalows at Ghadira and more significantly for a beach concession. It is also a fact that the GWU is actively involved in the company to the extent that it’s President and General Secretery are directors of the company. The proposal also included the building of a kiosk and a jetty. MEPA repeatedely declared that the beach concession proposed by the company breached public access to the shoreline. The fact that a beach concession was awarded to the Mellieha Holiday Centre in 1986 when the Labour leaning GWU did not have such a small shareholding, under a Labour administration or the fact that that there are other beach concessions (albeit illegal) does not change the issue of beach concessions. The argument that the Maltese owe their livelihood to the holiday centre is overly paternalistic, inherently colonial and an outdated way of justifying the unjustifiable.