It is going to be a lovely summer, what with having to pay through the nose to keep cool and the threat of a jelly fish invasion. The exorbitant surcharge we are going to have to pay on water and electricity, following the recent high bills, has certainly put a damper on things.
I am no economist, but surely the effect of having to pay so much for utilities and petrol will be that people will spend less elsewhere. Service providers and retailers will recoup some of their water, electricity and fuel expenses by raising their prices, but salaries generally have still not caught up with the rise in the cost of living.
During my early morning swim on Friday, I kept thinking that despite everything we still have the glorious water to cool off in. Imagine my horror to discover that our lovely sea will be infested with jellyfish any time soon.
My swim sets me up for the day and does wonders for stress levels, saving me lots of money on champagne and dark chocolate.
Besides, it keeps me fit and unlike champers and chocs, a swim helps me lose weight rather then gain it. But enough about me. Most Maltese people love the sea and enjoy a swim, if not once a day at least at weekends, not to mention the tourists.
It does not make economic sense to pay for advertising our beaches if the tourists are not able to swim in the sea because of jellyfish.
Other Mediterranean countries like the south of France are using booms and nets to ensure the waters are safe for swimming in. I have no idea how much the booms cost, that will obviously have to be worked out by the Tourism Ministry, but nets should not be prohibitive to install.
Waste not...
Will we ever get out act together? Every week we are informed about how we lag behind compared to other European member states. Not that the EU is telling us anything new, what is new is that we are likely to be paying more taxes to cover fines imposed by the European Commission.
Malta is the highest breaker of EU environmental rules when compared to its new counterparts. We are already in trouble and are facing being nailed in the European court because Malta was the only EU member state still permitting spring hunting. Hopefully the government’s stand this spring might save us some money.
But we still have waste issues to contend with, and although we finally have started with recyclable waste collection, Malta has never reported data on the recycling rate of packaging waste and the European Commission has launched an infringement procedure for not respecting this mandatory reporting.
How do we manage to produce an average of 652 kilos of municipal waste per capita, much more than the EU average? If the adage “where there’s muck there’s brass” applies, we must be all loaded.
The Commission is also sceptical that Malta will meet its target of halting the decline in biodiversity by 2010, besides reaching other EU targets.
Not surprisingly, we are facing more legal proceedings with regard to Special Protection Areas (SPAs) and Sites of Community Importance (SCIs) because not enough sites have been designated.
New cast same plot at MEPA
Rather than protecting our environment we continue to abuse it. The promised reform at MEPA does not seem to be working and the farcical goings-on continue. The new chairman, Austin Walker, has had his baptism of fire with the Fort Cambridge project approval.
It seems that the decision for the project to go ahead had been decided before the public meeting.
Somehow the press got hold of a release, which was not meant to be released, announcing the approval before the meeting even started. These public meetings are still obviously a sham.
Mr Walker denied that the board had decided on approving the project before the meeting, and claimed the board knew nothing about the document, yet he also said that a similar statement that pre-empted a negative outcome had been prepared, however a copy of that document was unavailable. Did the board know about that document?
"I don't think this is an issue or rather I don't think... I don't think it's in the public interest or even in that of the press at this point in time," Mr Walker said when asked to produce the other copy, as reported by Mark Micallef in The Times on Friday.
Not a good start for the new chairman. It is very much in the public interest to know that MEPA public hearings are not a waste of time and not just a charade. If the draft press release on a negative outcome existed it should have been produced.
The fact that it did not materialise at the time suggests it never existed. Producing a copy now will not wash.
The whole point of the Prime Minister saying he was going to reform MEPA was precisely because of this kind of attitude and also, I presume, to ensure meetings change to allow objectors to speak.
Unfortunately, this does not seem to have changed either, not even at the appeal stage. A letter to The Times, also on Friday, stated “...The Appeals Board is no remedy as I found out at my expense. There, a registered objector discovers that he is only an impotent observer disqualified from objecting to the developer's submissions.
“MEPA's lawyers, who are the ones allowed to speak, can choose to keep their mouths shut because they do not represent the registered objectors".
Back to the Fort Cambridge project, it was given the go ahead unanimously. However, Joe Farrugia, the board member who said at the previous meeting that the project should stick to 16 floors as specified in the local plan and not go higher because of the overbearing visual impact the project had on the area, was not present at Thursday’s meeting.
The developers and their architects did what they are so clever at doing, and returned with fresh plans for a 20-floor building, which they claim will still be the equivalent in height to what a regular 16-floor building would be despite the block having four extra floors.
The architects must be either magicians or miracle workers. They claim they will achieve this by trimming each floor so that the block would fit into the height limit, while retaining a larger number of apartments. Well they obviously mesmerised the board.
Not only will the block be shorter: it will have a larger number of apartments. I suppose the ‘For Sale’ adverts will have “Only suitable for vertically challenged people”.
As to the visual impact on the area and the view from Valletta, it will just aggravate the existing ghastly disaster of Tignè Point. Why on earth did the Superintendence for Cultural Heritage stress the point now and in a last-minute letter sent to the authority? What a useless gesture. The horse has not only bolted but also taken the whole stable along for the ride.
pamelapacehansen@gmail.com
