Imagine you were a farmer/hunter working in your field. No guns around. No, just you and a good mate, harvesting the lettuce and broad beans that you had lovingly sown and nurtured while listening to birds twittering.
Along come a couple of nasty BirdLife volunteers, trampling all over your field. Do you shout out and tell them to get off your land? No, of course not, that would be too civilised. Do you threaten to call the police to shoo away the trespassers? No, not your style.
There’s no way around it. The only way to tackle the situation is to attack the provoking bird lovers, pin them to the ground (turning your broad beans into bigilla in the process) and proceed to beat them up black and blue while screaming “I will kill you! I will kill you!” After that you cunningly steal their video camera and delete all footage of yourself “harvesting a crop of lettuce”.
There are other things you could do, of course. You could opt to pull out one of those non-existent guns you use while conserving nature and shoot several rounds at their windscreen.
However once you have done all that, the time will come when you will be forced to come down from Cloud-cuckoo-land where you are entitled to do as you please without any consequences because you were “provoked” – which is what you are told by people like Lino Farrugia of FKNK and Peter Axisa, CEO of the Ta’ Qali Producers Group.
The reality on Planet Earth is that you are not entitled to beat anyone up. You are not entitled to shoot at cars, or set them on fire, or give in to whatever other vandalistic impulse hits you.
It is not a “provocation” when BirdLife and CABS volunteers film you shooting birds. You are the one who is breaking the law, not them. It bothers you to see them filming you because you know that what you are doing is illegal and you do not want them to expose you.
So stop this “provocation” rubbish. You are the ones who are “provoking” trouble. You are “provoking” the rest of the population who hate to hear about your illegal hunting activities. You are “provoking” the European Court and the rest of us might end up having to pay through our noses for your excesses. People like Lino Farrugia and Peter Axisa must stop this talk of “provocation”. They should condemn any acts of violence and vandalism without reservation. They should back up their actions by expelling anyone who behaved in such a manner. People who behave like savage animals should not be trusted with guns.
If the hunting lobby goes on like this, their easily provoked followers are going to go on a self-entitled rampage and we will see a repeat of the terrible vandalism that occurred in the past at places like Ghadira Nature Reserve, Hagar Qim temples and Mnajdra Temples.
“Il-kbir ghadu gej” – let’s hope not.
No, no and no! Was I the only one who got depressed after reading news of the Auditor General’s report about the tender issued by Enemalta Corporation for the supply of a new power generating plant at Delimara? The more I read, the glummer I got!
Was I supposed to feel better that he had “not come across any hard and conclusive evidence of corruption”? NO!
Was it uplifting to realise that the winning bid would not have qualified had there not been a legislative amendment in January 2008 raising the acceptable level of emissions? Once again – NO! So much for wanting to improve air quality and counteract the fact that Malta has one of the highest incidences of asthma in Europe.
Was it encouraging to find out that the Maltese are going to be guinea pigs for an untried prototype combination for which the bidder could only supply “theoretical assumptions” about emission levels? NO!
I could keep asking questions about this report and answering no, no and no over and over again, but that would be boring.
The fact is that there is nothing in the report to inspire confidence in the tender adjudication process. The process appears to have been vitiated from start to finish, from the changing of the acceptable emission levels after the tenders had been submitted, to the appointment by direct order of a technical consultancy firm that is not only blacklisted for corruption by the World Bank for corrupt practices overseas but has also worked on several joint venture projects with BWSC (thus having a potential conflict of interest), to the selection of an untried prototype solution even though the tender specified that only “tried and tested solutions that were backed up by references to international sites operating the same equipment” would be considered.
What on earth were they thinking?
The Auditor General’s report has opened a can of worms. The statements emerging from the Ministry of Finance that the report has vindicated the government and shown that there was no corruption in the awarding of this tender are not only naïve – they are risible.
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