I read the recent report on your newspaper about the General Conference about the permanent link between Malta and Gozo. All were in favour and none against. It is interesting what was said: studies will take a long time to make, active faults are present, a public private partnership, the fast ferry service between the islands and the transport between the islands to be part of a national network.

This confirms my thinking that the money would not be found for the tunnel. To serve the needs of Gozo, it should be a four lane tunnel and a safe lane. No one is mentioning the maintenance costs. The Gozo Channel Company barely makes a profit. So I wonder how a private enterprise will invest in this project and get back the capital and make profit.

The transport can be a public private partnership by liberalising it and letting other companies work in parallel to the Gozo Channel Company and not only to Cirkewwa but to Sliema, tal-Pieta, the Grand Harbour and the South of Malta. A fast ferry service by the Gozo Channel Company will not introduce competition. When low cost airlines were let to work in Malta, there was no need to build another runway. So the infrastructure at Mgarr Gozo can be used better if other companies are let to work and the schedules interleaved. In Malta some infrastructure has to be built. If some people believe that money can be found for a tunnel, I wonder why not for this infrastructure.

I heard talk about an airport in Gozo which would handle private jets and that the project has been shelved. I think it would be better to develop the now existing heliport into a small airport by doubling the length of the runway and this can be done without using agricultural land. And small aeroplanes carrying a small amount of people from Malta to Gozo can land, maybe even people travelling to and from work. This is safer and cheaper than a helicopter. I remember two very valid brothers from the Shetlands telling me that every small island there has a small runway, and they wondered incredulously why not in Gozo.

If these people really think that this monstrous sum of money can be invested in a permanent link which would then need maintenance all along, I invite them to propose projects for Gozo which benefit all the people of Gozo which need a very small fraction of this sum: a family natural park like the one in Marsascala, maybe at Hondoq; a public  heated swimming pool, maybe at the site of the old Boys’ Secondary School; embellishing Marsalforn and Xlendi like Mgarr Gozo; to not be silly and leaving Victoria Centre and other places like a war zone; attracting up market tourism and foreign residents to Gozo which make money available to restore our old houses without tearing them down; protecting our villages and our natural environment; attracting quality jobs which use the internet;. I think there will be always the need of people travelling to Malta for work but this would ease the flow.

The middle road is doing just the right thing. More than needed would ruin Gozo’s soul forever. Then when and if the time comes for a decision on a permanent link, it would be in the hands of all the Maltese people to decide, since it is their money which will be invested.

 

Joe Portelli

Nadur