PN`s secretary general Joe Saliba has been spotted enjoying a yachting holiday as guest of Zaren Vassallo, a major government contractor who has been awarded some of the most lucrative public tenders over the past years.
The contractor in question is a major activist of the Nationalist Party. It is public knowledge that this contractor is frequently seen inside the corridors of the party's headquarters. Throughout the last years, Vassallo Builders Group of companies were awarded numerous government contracts, some of which are worth seven figure sums.
By his actions, Saliba raises the question if the system of cash for contracts in this country exists or not.
Whereas Joe Public didn't really give a toss before, he is now seeing the Nationalist Government's misdemeanors, dishonesty and sleaze and is getting concerned. There is no positive outcome at this point for the Nationalist Party. Either Joe Saliba admits that he was in the wrong and apologises, or else the Prime Minister must distance himself from his secretary general's “lifestyle ambitions” by mingling with the chosen and privileged few and the great and the good.
PN supporters admit that the general impression of sleaze has the potential to damage their agenda at a time when the Prime Minister is already under intense pressure over the poor performance of his Cabinet and Government.

Josef Cachia
Hamrun

Leading exponents in favour of the rampant “development” of Gozo frequently cite “the need to create a balance between environmental protection and economic development,” as if both were mutually exclusive – a fallacy demonstrably debunked on www.adgozo.com, which readers are invited to consult.
Among the many reasons why I will be voting for Alternattiva Demokratika in the forthcoming general election is its categorical rejection of the tried, tested and failed formula of myopic concrete construction, wreaking the permanent, irremediable destruction of not just a uniquely beautiful, but a hugely lucrative natural landscape too.
Which Maltese or Gozitan does not return from Ireland, for example, without indelibly etched memories of its pristine green scenery, harbouring no qualms about having paid “top dollar” rates for the privilege?
In the same vein, even “rock and weed waste-land”, indifferently dismissed by a few in Gozo, as suitable only for construction development, commands highly prized experiential value among discerning visitors, content and willing to effectively substantiate it with very hard “green money”.
It is unacceptable, therefore, that Gozo be irrevocably scarred by the blight of residual debris from bankrupt speculation, conspicuously evidenced by the defunct Mgarr Hotel, typifying “yesterday’s economy”, characterised by low status, low-paid, low-skilled, dead-end contingent “jobs” with no prospects.
Gozo’s woes, spawned by the tragic, wanton squandering of natural assets and human talent, do not, however, have to arise. Inordinately possessed, as they manifestly are, of resourceful inventiveness, industry and consummately innovative creativity, Gozitans deserve a secure future with permanent, highly skilled, well-paid and all-year-round careers.
In this regard, AD’s cogent economic equation encompasses both its steadfast quality-of-life commitment to the protection and preservation of Gozo’s outstanding natural environment, as well as a vastly enhanced standard-of-living by virtue of the correlated creation of wealth and sustainable employment in high value-added heritage, cultural, eco and agro tourism.

Oisin Jones-Dillon

In your column in MaltaToday (September 2), you mentioned your encounter with a staff member in one of the wards at St Luke's Hospital who asked you “to do something about the cornflakes and ham that are robbed on a daily basis from the wards”.
It would have been more helpful had you asked your informant whether he brought his concern to the knowledge of the hospital's senior management, which is responsible for such matters, rather than the Minister of Health and Elderly and Community Care. As an employee who has been engaged in the hospital for the past eight years, as he himself declared, he is definitely aware of the proper avenue to take under such circumstances.
Alternatively you may pass the details of this conversation to us in confidence so that we will be able to investigate this alleged abuse.
The hospital's management never fails to take disciplinary as well as legal action in cases where members of staff or public are caught pilfering government property.

Martin Farrugia
Director Support Services

Your correspondent Mr Marshall Dixon (“A golden opportunity not to be lost forever”, MaltaToday 2 September) was surprised to find the hall at the  MEPA Ta' Cenc meeting on 21 August packed with Gozitans, most of whom were openly expressing their full support to the project.
In an earlier paragraph he says that he has got to know the Gozitans quite well over the years. He has obviously not realised (see other reports of the meeting in other newspapers) that most of those Gozitans present were employees of the Ta' Cenc owner, and that they would of course be vociferous in their approval – nobody is going to bite the hand that feeds him.
Maybe Mr Dixon should live a few more decades in Gozo before presuming to “know the Gozitans quite well”.

Dr Stephen Vassallo
Xewkija

While appreciating the wide coverage given by MaltaToday to the topic of migration in the past Sunday edition of the paper, BirdLife Malta needs to clarify some of the information reported by your paper in different sections of the coverage, some of which was wrongly attributed to BirdLife’s Conservation Manager Dr André Raine. The vast majority of quotes attributed to Dr Raine do not, in fact, accurately report what he stated.
In the first place, BirdLife would like to underline the fact that it is not against legal hunting in autumn, as long as it is carried out in line with the laws of the European Union, as laid out in the Birds Directive. Therefore, the quotation reported by your correspondent and attributed to Dr Raine that Government “should just halt the hunting of most migrating birds immediately and not drag it out for so long” can most definitely not be attributed to a BirdLife spokesperson and was certainly never stated by Dr Raine. On the other hand, BirdLife has publicly stated that while it welcomed the step taken by Government to halt hunting in the afternoon for the last two weeks of September in order to stop the illegal hunting of migrating birds of prey, BirdLife feels that it would have been better to extend this to cover the entire peak period of raptor migration which extends from September to early October. This was also clearly explained to your journalist by Dr Raine.
With respect to the reference regarding the hunting of turtle doves, quails and plovers, once again the facts are presented in a somewhat confused manner and Dr Raine has been misquoted. In the first place, a distinction needs to be made between hunting and trapping. It is illegal to hunt plovers in spring, even under local legislation and of course, BirdLife Malta remains opposed to spring hunting in general, which is in fact illegal throughout the EU. Rather, what Dr Raine actually commented on was the trapping of turtle doves, quails, song thrush and golden plover, which is not permitted throughout the EU. The only exception to this is the trapping of finches which, under agreement with the EU during Accession negotiations, will be phased out in Malta by the end of December, 2008.
On a final note, the article reported Dr Raine as saying that “The number of species to be found in Malta is relatively small in comparison to what it should be because the trapping intensity is so high.” This is not a correct interpretation of what Dr Raine stated as he was referring to the impact of trapping solely on breeding finch populations and not other migrating species.

Marija Schranz
PRO, Birdlife Malta

I became familiar with the KNŻ – National Youth Council – when I grew interested in taking part in the National Youth Parliament. Definitely it should have been an experience to sign my conception of doing politics. But alas, such an experience showed me how the KNŻ is evidently being run.
Clearly enough the KNŻ, being a voluntary and autonomous NGO which promotes itself as a foremost actor in Maltese civil society as well as an influential channel of information and opinions between young people's interests and decision-makers, ought to be kept as far as possible from any sort of partisan politics. Thus, how can it be that such a national independent institution is chaired by a person who occupies the post of journalist as well as that of regular newscaster for NET Television: a TV station indisputably miles away from being sovereign from any partisan agenda? Well, this should raise no surprise since everything is overtly and explicitly stated on KNŻ's official Internet site, proudly describing KNŻ's President Ms Alessia Zammit as a "presenter and journalist with Media.link Communications".
Is it tolerable to have the president of the National Youth Council – the organisation that should be representing all youths, regardless of their political ideologies, with the sole aim of struggling to achieve the best for us – to be on-air on Radio 101, another Nationalist institution? Is it acceptable to have Ms Zammit one day being the representing figure of all Maltese and Gozitan youths, and the following day pursuing Dr Sant as a NET News' journalist asking partisan questions? How can an all-out pro-Nationalist Party exponent lead n NGO that really wants to be credible in depicting itself as an entirely apolitical organization?
Is such conduct appropriate for the KNŻ's president? Am I mistaken in perceiving all this as a significant conflict of interest between the duties and obligations towards the young people that the presidency of KNŻ carries with it, and the interests embedded in the mechanism of being a journalist and broadcaster of an official political party television station? Moreover, am I wrong in feeling that youths are not being appropriately represented on local, national as well as on international level due to Ms Zammit’s close affiliations with the Nationalist Party, which leaves no room for a truly independent commitment and genuine function of KNŻ's leader in favour of all youths?
I regret to confess this, but I feel awfully disappointed and indeed dissatisfied with Ms Zammit conducting of KNŻ's presidency and at the same time supporting and unconditionally pushing forward the Nationalist Party’s political agenda. In the end Ms Zammit, the person who should stand up for the rights of each and every single young person, is nothing more than the Nationalist Party’s own political agenda propagator.
 
Nikita Alamango
Kappara

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The injustice of the rent-bound property

Eddie Fenech Adami, when still Leader of the Nationalist Party in the 1980s, declared in the Nationalist Electoral Programme “Ripe for Change”, page 69, that “there is enormous difference in the rents being paid for new houses compared with what is paid for the old ones”, thus showing that the Nationalist Party would try to solve this injustice.
In fact my father in 1950 gave a house in rent to a newly wed couple at Lm10 a year: at that time the salary for one month was Lm10. In 2007, the son, a government employed (single) man – who “inherited” my house – still pays Lm10 a year when his monthly salary is more than Lm450.
The Nationalist Government did nothing to solve this injustice; they don’t even mention it any more. They are content with the policy: “Robbing Peter to pay Paul”.

Frank Sammut
Valletta

I read with much interest Dr Anna Mallia’s article titled “Maltese citizenship: does it come so cheap?” ( August 29).
Ms Mallia put the situation in its harsh reality in a very erudite and informed manner and deserves a big “prosit”.
I say to the authorities: please take note and keep the article handy when evaluating applications for Maltese citizenship.

Alfred Rizzo