As preparations for this week’s Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting swing into the final days, there is mounting concern that the expenditure involved has gone beyond what the government had budgeted.
The government had budgeted Lm1.5 million – an absolutely ridiculous sum considering the huge millions Nigeria spent two years ago and that Uganda is planning to spend (Shs 30 million).
The estimates for the sum that has actually been spent on CHOGM preparations vary from a conservative Lm2.5 million to Lm4 million. Government sources admit that spending is over the budgeted figure – even though they say that variations could make it go up to Lm1.9 million and still be within budget – but claim that only some Lm400,000 extra will be needed.
Obviously, all the bills have to be in and checked for the final sum to be known, but it is also possible that some expenses are hidden elsewhere in the government’s expenditure. For instance, Public Works employees working on the airport to Valletta road has always been said to “have nothing to do with CHOGM”.
Concern over weather
As the final days roll by, eyes are being turned heavenwards and the skies scrutinised to see what kind of weather the Queen’s visit and CHOGM will enjoy.
In many Maltese minds, international attention that will focus on Malta reminds them of the same attention which surrounded the George Bush – Mikhail Gorbachev summit on 2 December 1989 when Malta was battered by an almighty Grigal.
Some things are uncannily the same: not just the date, but also the deteriorating weather conditions as from last Wednesday, which are producing colder days and nights.
The MIA weather forecast for the coming days predict showers on Tuesday and Wednesday and a thunderstorm on Thursday.
What could be an equally bad omen is the cold front now enveloping northeast Italy and the Balkans – the weather conditions which are said to bring about a Grigal and a cold front over Malta.
Anger over roads ‘where the Queen will not pass from’
While those parts of the country, which will be very much in evidence in the coming days, have been painstakingly cleaned, repaired, repainted and made to look good, there is widespread anger over the other roads that have been left in their sorry state.
One particular case shows how short-sighted the upgrading works have been.
The road past the Valletta Waterfront on the way to Marsa has been left, despite pleas and insistence including this newspaper’s, in its present disastrous state. Promises made by government officials have not materialised either, despite a flurry of late night road patching work last week.
A wit has even hung a sign ‘Danger – Hofor’ before the road narrows by the new MMA building site. It is valid up to the Sea Malta offices and even beyond.
One then comes to the roundabout near HSBC’s Hexagon House and Go Mobile’s offices which has been in a mess for many years.
This is a road not only of interest to the CHOGM visitors (they will have to be routed through Floriana instead, thus increasing the traffic pressure) but also to all cruise liner passengers whose coaches invariably pass through this road, thus giving the visitors a very bad first impression of Malta.
Equally, the marble merchant just beyond Go Mobile, still insists on leaving his slabs of marble by the side of the road as if it were part of his workshop.
Boxing match at MCC
The hundreds of workers hurrying with the last minute preparations at the Mediterranean Conference Centre were astounded on Thursday afternoon to witness an impromptu boxing match that left MCC’s General Manager, Nello Iraci, with a black eye.
It seems the altercation was about a fridge, about which Lexus Lighting’s Silvio Scerri had some ideas.
This seemed to remind many people of the famous heated argument that erupted between Lou Bondi and Gert Hof at 11.45pm on 30 April 2004 just as Malta was on the threshold about to enter the EU.
It is inevitable that during last-minute preparations there will be heightened tension and personality clashes, but in this case the whole issue regarding the cultural event at MCC next Friday has been fraught with controversy right from the beginning.
Excluding all that is being mooted by people in the sector regarding the event, it is an incontrovertible fact that only two companies bid for the event: Welcome Events, a consortium made up of Where’s Everybody together with Lexus and NNG Promotions and Sunrays, an incoming tourists company. It is also accepted that the proposal by Welcome Events was far better than its competitor.
But this paper can reveal that the adjudicating board refused to grant the contract to Welcome Events because of an argument regarding the price of the water curtain feature and who would pay for it.
The matter was finally solved when a local bank came up with a sponsorship that settled the argument.
Rivals or would-be emulators of the winning consortium also claimed that the water feature should have been different, that it should have been imported, and that the dancers had to be all Maltese, but this could not be confirmed from a study of the tender document, still on the CHOGM website, despite claims to the contrary.
In a way, this has all to be seen in the wider context of the competing claims of those who want a share, or a bigger share, in the Maltese television production market, which has to be crammed in the narrow schedule of PBS, and with claims and counter-claims of people getting their time-slots through pulling political or other strings, rather than through a fair, level playing field competition.
It’s a far cry from the problems of the world and the Commonwealth billions of citizens to the parochial fields of Malta, but that is how, at the end, it seems.