We refer to the article entitled “Shame on ADT!” by Dr Anna Mallia.
While we agree on a selected number of points raised by your correspondent, it must be stated that most of the article is riddled with inconsistencies that beg correction.
The ADT has no jurisdiction over persons driving private vehicles without a licence or insurance cover. The power to stop a vehicle to check the insurance cover lies only with the Police – Article 8 of the Motor Vehicles Insurance (Third Party Risks) Ordinance – Chapter 104.
Apart from the aforesaid, your correspondent might not be aware of the fact that according to Article 2 of Council Directive 72/166/EEC, as amended, Member States may only carry out non-systematic checks on insurance. These checks have to be carried out as part of a control procedure which is not aimed exclusively or restricted solely to insurance verification.
The ADT has no jurisdiction over joy riders, irrespective of where they hail from.
The ADT obliges public transport personnel to adequately display their identification cards in their vehicles. Action is taken against public transport personnel who fail to abide by the rules and regulations during the ADT Disciplinary Board.
The ADT has no jurisdiction over the transfer of private vehicles. The Motor Vehicles Regulations clearly stipulate that the responsibility of effecting a transfer fall on the seller and it is in his/her interest to ensure that the vehicle transfer is carried out. Regulation 29 of the Motor Vehicles (Registration and Licensing) Regulations is clear on this: it is the seller who, within seven days, shall give notice of the disposal of the vehicle to the Authority, together with the name and address of the purchaser empowering the seller with full control over the sale of his/her vehicle.
Dr Mallia is categorically wrong in her claim that ADT officials have the same powers as traffic police and local wardens. Under different sets of regulations, ADT officials have rights including to monitor, intervene and stop public transport vehicles and to carry out roadside checks on motor vehicles. The latter checks are carried out in conjunction with the police. New regulations have been drafted so that the latter checks may also be carried out without the presence of the police. As a lawyer, your correspondent should be aware of the fact that it is only the Police and Local Wardens who have executive powers.
With regards to the issue of “No Parking instructions on a piece of A4 paper stuck to a piece of wood in a tomato paste tin”, these are not issued by the ADT or its officials.
The ADT is only permitted to close roads for civil works on arterial roads and for no other reasons. The ADT in fact announces these road closures through paid adverts in newspapers (including Malta Today) and ensures that appropriate signage is erected by the contractor carrying out the works.
We are aware that your correspondent has been involved in a court case concerning the parking of a car in a road where parking was not allowed on a particular day. We are also aware of the opinion expressed by the presiding Magistrate that No Parking signs placed on such occasions should also carry the stamp of the authority concerned. May we assure your correspondent that it was not ADT which placed those No Parking signs in that particular road.
Furthermore, the ADT has no legal power to stop vehicles to carry out breathalyser tests although the ADT holds a Drink Drive Awareness Campaign every year. This power lies, as it certainly should, with the police, because driving a motor vehicle under the influence of alcohol (or drugs) constitutes a criminal offence and not just a contravention. According to the Traffic Regulation Ordinance, which provides for such cases, drink-driving carries, for a first conviction, a fine (multa) of not less than Lm200 (€465.87) or imprisonment not exceeding three months, or both such fine and imprisonment.
As stated in the article, the Malta Transport Authority is responsible for ensuring safety on our roads. Over the years, the ADT has introduced several measures intended to increase safety on our roads which include the implementation of the full Vehicle Roadworthiness Test, the introduction of the new theoretical and practical driver test and the penalty point system for new drivers, the carrying out of technical roadside inspections, the introduction of the compulsory use of front and rear seat belts, the introduction of cycle lanes, the implementation of several road calming measures, pedestrian facilities and other infrastructural measures and the introduction of speed limitation devices, amongst others.
To conclude, we find Dr Mallia’s article a shame. One would have expected that in her capacity as a lawyer and journalist she would have taken the time to research her topic in an appropriate manner before putting pen to paper.

Daniela Borg Mizzi
Manager, Public Relations
Malta Transport Authority

I endorse what Green Party leader Harry Vassallo said recently about the need that farmers and agriculture deserves respect, and that while the EU dedicates half its budget to agriculture, this sector in Malta has remained the Cinderella of the Maltese economy for generations.
Most Gozitans still grow their own vegetables, some families keep sheep and goats and prepare their own products from milk, have a few chickens for eggs and also for meat. Others keep rabbits to add to our traditional meal. On the other hand, new generations from the cities have little idea what they are eating. In Gozo we have about 3,000 registered farmers, most of them working on a part-time basis.
Our farmers also take care of the landscape and the environment. Farmers feel responsible for nature and the creatures of nature. We work in nature and work with nature.
The countryside is more than just an area for farmers. Nowadays it’s also an area for recreation. Many people spend their holiday breaks in the countryside. I advise all politicians, and not just Alternattiva Demokratika, to treat the environment and countryside with respect so that our great grandchildren can also enjoy it. Land speculators and such greedy individuals should be treated the same as other common citizens in front of the law and authorities. They should be made aware that in Gozo alone 48% of the properties are vacant. The countryside is an area which is given to us to use, to conserve and to protect in a way that our grandchildren can say: we are proud of our grandparents who saved the countryside for us.
 
Martin Camilleri
Nadur

I refer to the letter by Jesmond Saliba, Communications Co-coordinator to Minister Austin Gatt, entitled “An Exercise in dishonesty”, regarding the discord that has further befallen Public Broadcasting Services as a result of the recent alleged silencing of the Registered Editor of the national TV and radio station.
Mr Saliba was prompt to refer to the PBS Editor’s letter to The Times which appeared earlier, and which, unfortunately, could have complicated matters somewhat further. Whether the PBS Editor was actually made to write the said letter to The Times, as your journalist, Mr Karl Schembri, made one to believe, is not for me to say, though the indicators all point in that direction. Anyway, it is no doubt a fact that the bullies and the arrogant would not hesitate to do so.
Why did the Minister’s co-coordinator fail to refer to what the PBS Editor was quoted to have said earlier regarding “an imposed media blackout” or that she cannot speak to the press and that whatever she has to say has to be channeled through the CEO? Do we have to doubt her on this?
If this is not a serious attempt of muzzling, censorship and interference, then what is?
I strongly believe that the Registered Editor of PBS has been hurt more severely by government’s attitude towards the situation at PBS, than by Karl Schembri’s article. If anything, the article must have been intended to defend her office, and furthermore to ensure that the freedom of expression/speech is not tampered with by the authorities.
“I am not a leftist, I am where the righteous ought to be” – M.M. Coady

John G. Borg-Bartolo.
Attard

Whenever it suits them, certain people speak in terms of Euros instead of Malta Liri. Like the €800 million (gross not net) over seven years from the EU. Everyone knows that, on a net basis and in Malta liri per annum, the same figure will no longer sound as impressive.
Why don’t these same people on the national TV station, paid from our own taxes, tell us that in the last 20 years, we have burnt €4,659 million?  (Lm500 million in reserves left by the Labour government in 1987, and Lm1.5 billion of national debt incurred since then).   
Why don’t they also tell us that the latest annual figure for interest being paid on the national debt alone amounts to €180 million? (Lm77.381 million).
Well, they say that there are lies, damned lies and statistics. But I think there must be even more than that, because it seems that whoever coined this maxim reckoned without the likes of Lou Bondi & Co.
 
Vincent Piccinino
Valletta

It is sad to note that a circus company which uses aquatic animals in its shows is in Malta to give a number of performances.  
In a country where animal cruelty is rife and often goes unchecked and unpunished, all we need is for more animal cruelty to be imported under the guise of entertainment for families and for school children.  
I hope that more people will recognise the suffering experienced by circus animals and choose not to go to the circus.  

Angele Deguara
Msida

It has been reported that Japan is to restart its whale hunting programme under the lame excuse that this is all being done for research purposes. What kind of research entails the massacre of thousands of these magnificent and endangered species?
Obsessed as the Japanese are with robotics, one may perhaps think that they are trying to create a robot whale, but my guess is that the so called research has more to do with gastronomy than robotics, and that the slaughtered whales will end up on dinner plates in Japanese restaurants.
Shame on them.

Victor Pulis
Tarxien

One of the many controversies that agitate the Local Council of Marsascala centres around the new Council Magazine.
The Mayor, who is also the editor, refuses to furnish the Council with the Magazine Accounts, and knowing that a substantial amount of revenue is generated from the adverts included in the mag, this refusal tends to raise eyebrows.
Questions asking who is responsible for collecting the money from the adverts, who issues the VAT receipts, who is actually behind the preparation of the mag, remain unanswered. It was not surprising therefore, that three members of the editorial board have resigned, washing their hands of the murky situation.
Yet when I put forward a motion requesting the Council to bring back its former publication, “Ħidmet il-Kunsill”, the four MLP councillors voted in favour of retaining the status quo. Knowing them personally to be responsible people, I detected the long arm of the Hamrun glass house moving the pieces around the board.
Why am I saying all this? Because there is more to this than the production of the Council’s Magazine. Way back in May 2006, the Council had unanimously decided to include in its publication articles by the Front Against the Sant’ Antnin Recycling Plant, intended to keep the citizens of Marsascala abreast of the situation regarding the plant.
Last Friday 23 November, to my great astonishment, the Mayor and another Labour councillor voted against the inclusion of the Front’s article. The two PN councillors abstained leaving only me, the representative of the Group Indipendenti Marsascala (GIM) to vote in favour of the ordinary citizens of our locality being updated regarding the situation, as two other Labour councillors had been excused from attending. Knowing that, however unwillingly, councillors are merely an extension of their party’s will, does this embargo of the Front’s article mean that the MLP has now changed tactics and is quietly accepting the Recycling Plant’s monstrous presence at the doorway of Marsascala? Has the Front reached its sell-by date as far as the MLP is concerned?
Alfred Sant has never pronounced himself clearly on the situation and I have always publicly contended that should he find the plant ready built, he would accept the situation, washing his hands clean by saying that he had opposed it and the fault could not be laid at his door. Whatever the game, the citizens of Marsascala, as far as the MLPN are concerned, have been betrayed. Can anybody now accuse Josie Muscat of scaremongering and touting for votes? Can anybody now accuse me of ulterior motives in setting up GIM?
More wonders! While the Front’s article against the Recycling Plant was being thrown out, there was a proposition to include an article by Dr Alfred Sant on the same subject. I wonder why one had to make way for the other! In any case this would have meant a blatant intrusion of party politics in the workings of the Council, for had Dr Sant’s article been published, it would have opened the way to articles by other political party leaders. I am glad that the proposal was voted out for I am against partisan politics creeping in through the back door.
The formation of the Local Councils is unhappy enough as it is, with the councillors being no more than the fingers at the end of the arms reaching out from the two neighbouring headquarters at Hamrun and Pieta.
Truly the people of Marsascala have been led on a merry dance – all the way to the polluted waters of our once lovely bay.

Josie Muscat
M’scala

During these past years the Labour party proved to the Maltese electorate that he is ready and committed to be the government for all, both for the workers and also for the businessman and self-employed. A government not only for a couple of people hanging around its ministers or at Tal-Pieta’, like the Nationalist government, but a government for all the Maltese despite their political beliefs.
The Labour Party in government would be implementing is plan for a new beginning built on months and months of consultation with all those parties concerned with each and every specific plan. Dr Sant as Prime Minister would bring about a true separation of powers, separating party interest from governmental issues. As future Prime Minister, Dr Sant would also take off some of the burden of taxes that the nationalist government has put on each and every Maltese citizen.
Under the honest leadership of Dr Sant, the rest of the Labour MPs would bring about the change that we have been crying for and which is being felt more with every passing day. After Australia’s Labour victory. now it’s time for Malta to benefit from another socialist government which would give us again work protection and dignity so that we could pursue a much more European lifestyle.  
 
Alex Saliba
Tarxien

Prof. Jeremy Boissevain (interviewed on 25 November) used to live in Kirkop and throughout his stay in this small village, he participated actively and interacted well with the Koppin.
This was more than 40 years ago, and he predicted then that when Malta became independent the Maltese ministers would become the new saints.
Almost half a century later, Professor Boissevain is still feeling the pulse of the community and his latest edited book on the village of Kirkop is proof of a collection of sequences. As an anthropologist and as a scientific researcher, Jeremy is straight to the point when he comes to collecting and collating data, evaluating and analysing the information.
Finally, he posits a theory about the Maltese society, where he goes on to compare the Maltese way of living with his homeland Holland or with any other European country.
However, he seems to have formed an opinion that the environmental NGOs are educating the politicians. Also, he states that over a short span of years, it is difficult to predict a theory regarding the role of the festi organisers. In his paper “When the saints go marching out” (1977), he predicted that the feasts in Malta would die a natural death. Now that the contrary has occurred, I wonder how the transmission of trends, customs and habits concerning the feasts have bountiful  flourished and spreaded all over the whole island. Nowadays, we experience new scenarios of the village festas in the new communities. Fireworks are manufactured in a traditional village and sold to a new town. Band members are hired from different localities and these move where the money walks.
Jeremy was right to say that a popular bottom-up approach against mega developments has left a positive impact on the environment. He describes the U-turn of the government on the Xaghra l-Hamra golf course, the Mnajdra landfill and Ramla l-Hamra took place due to popular pressure. To a certain extent, one must give credit to the Local Councils, whose councillors had to engage professionals to object the developments. Such tasks had cost thousands of liri to the local councils.
The decentralisation of power to the local councils has on the whole left a positive impact on the communities. Quite often, the councils are perceived as a social work agency. When a person feels sad or mad or bad, s/he expects to find comfort and relief, support and shelter, affection and empathy in the local council. Sometimes, the expectations of the clients are by far higher than that of the service provider. Hence, frustration, anger and despair follow in such a situation.
There is a case study of a particular locality , where there is stiff opposition from a governmental department to the enlargement of the municipality centre. Such opposition is coming from a group of few people , who are using a government department to object and to oppose the building of a bigger local council in the core of the village. This small group of people have very strong political power and they influenced the head of the government department to oppose the enlargement of the  municipality building. Thus, by so doing, the local council would never manage to build a community hall which is needed so badly by all the societies of the locality. Hence, in depriving the community from the enlargement of a municipality centre, the small group would benefit in two ways. First, they would keep the local council from fulfilling the action plan within a time frame and thus satisfy their own personal political needs; second, they would continue enjoying a monopoly over the only available hall of the governmental department, which is often leased to the societies of the locality. If there would be the enlargement of the municipality, the local council and the societies of the locality would be having its own municipality hall and this might embarrass a third party.
Professor Boissevain might accede to more information about this case study and he might also do research on the saints that do not want to give up their power to the local councils. Maybe, they feel that the local councils are a threat to them  or maybe the saints might think that the local councils might take their place in heaven. Who knows ? Time will tell.

Mario Salerno
Kirkop     

I’m writing a web page tribute for each of the men listed on our village War Memorial in Scotter, England.
One of them was Leading Signalman Ronald Leeke who lost his life on HM Submarine Urge. The vessel was based in Malta and sank in May 1942 having left your island on her way to Alexandria.
A picture has been found for each of the other World War 2 heroes, but not for Ron. He was a single man and his only brother died in 1993 and didn’t have children. For the past year I’ve been trying to find people who knew him with very little success.
I know it’s a long shot but does Malta have pictures of submarine crews?
The tribute pages can be seen on the site www.scotterpc.info by clicking on the ‘War Memorial’ tab.

Andrew Sheardown
Scotter, UK

The recent promotions in the highest echelons of the AFM’s chain of command have only served to stir up bad sentiments and a lot of animosity amongst key senior personnel who should over the years have learned to work synergistically to lead the Maltese army.
The timing of these key promotions, some of which are barely a year and three months from a previous lot that went hand in hand with a major AFM internal restructuring of its units and their respective headships, is considered too blatantly obvious in that it served to accommodate certain individuals or some particular agendas, which remain privy to a select few between AFM headquarters at Luqa Barracks and OPM, with its Defence Matters Directorate.
At a glance, any layman may well argue that, as one disgruntled veteran AFM serviceman put it, “it’s a very bad, sorry case of too many chiefs and not many Indians” in a brigade-sized military element of well under 2,000 troops on its books. With a never accomplishable establishment of personnel and relating organisational structures, many still complain that there remains a much more important acute personnel shortage across the whole board which isn’t being aptly addressed in a consistent, unwavering timely fashion.
Sub-units such as the 1 Regiment’s A Company, or the Maritime Squadron’s sea-going divisions, are craving for more personnel, as work rosters (which are dictated by either the momentum of operations or plain vacation/sick leave requirements) create near breaking-point situations in man-management procedures. Airport security guards perform 12-hour straight shifts, and seamen haven’t had some decent weekends off because of the illegal migration phenomenon, to quote a few examples.
The inflated numbers of senior field ranks at HQ AFM is not awe-inspiring in the least. The AFM Commander is either an easy malleable pawn in the hands of cabinet politicians and senior civil servants, or else it pleases him to be surrounded by a bunch of yes-men! Military leaders usually project strength and reassuring security; the local reality of mere appeasement, compromise or condescension is a far cry from those core values.
The incongruities created in this immediate short term saw a couple of unit second-in-command officers in the rank of Major having sub-unit commanders in the rank of Lieutenant Colonel, and themselves most probably skipped over once, twice or more times for the same next field ranks.
Similarly, a personnel establishment, properly promulgated through internal transparent procedures, is not easy to understand, if the recent high-level promotions were those final adjustments discussed in an AFM magazine given out to the public with a local newspaper in October.
Transparency and consultation seem entirely absent in this last AFM gaffe, indicating that the exercise was the handiwork of either one sole individual or of a key group of super-trusted officers working on some mysterious set agenda.
Whilst one pair of veteran, skipped-over officers have already sought in-house redress and also through the law courts, others who have again just been pinched by these promotions are taking this ghastly slap in the face with dignity, poise and calm, as they know now that their future contributions in the AFM can only be toned down severely in the created atmosphere of disheartened disillusionment.  
Knowing that their days and years to retirement are counted, they cannot be expected to have any incentive before them to render work that can continue to perpetuate essential Service values of selflessness and dedication to duty.
What little “esprit de corps” there was amongst the AFM officer corps, and especially between same graduating-class chums and mates, has now been smashed as each individual has had to assume a recluse attitude where they can’t trust or rely on each other anymore. Little does the top brass appreciate that these power games reflect in the long term on their troops, creating fragmented clans and disjointed standards of efficiency and efficacy that ultimately affect cost-effectiveness, overall mission success and individual welfare and morale.
 
Joe Sammut
ex-Malta Pioneer Corps
Idaho, USA

Fr Tony Mercieca will be returning to the mission in Haiti on 27 December 2007.
Fr Tony was born in Vittoriosa in 1953. He was ordained a diocesan priest in Malta on 21 April 1979 and shortly afterwards the Archbishop granted him his request to join the Brothers of Mother Teresa. On 1 October, 1979, he left Malta to join the Brothers in Los Angeles and he is still one of the few priests with the Brothers of Mother Teresa.
He has opened houses for the Brothers in Paris and Stockholm but his main mission has been with the poorest of the poor in Colombia and Haiti. He is now on his way to a new mission in Guatemala.
The Maltese have always been known for their generosity, particularly towards Maltese Missionaries abroad and I personally believe that Fr Tony’s urgent appeal will be responded to, as generously, before the middle of December.
Please send your donations to: Br Tony M.C, c/o Mrs Lilian Miceli Farrugia, Villa Elena, Onorato Bres Street, Ta’ Xbiex.

L. Miceli Farrugia,
Ta’ Xbiex