The Prime Minister’s communications office recently launched a new ‘initiative’ whereby videos detailing government ‘achievements’ in different sectors during the previous month are uploaded to Joseph Muscat’s Facebook page.

The first item in a video titled ‘Environmental, social and cultural achievements in Malta during March’ is the recent rejection, by the Planning Authority, of an application for the development of a retirement home in Swieqi’s Wied Ghomor.

Many criticized the video for the fact that the PM was trying to steal the credit for ‘saving’ Wied Ghomor from the NGOs who worked tirelessly over the issue.

Others pointed out that the PM cannot try and take credit for a decision taken by the PA - a supposedly autonomous entity.  By boasting about the PA decision in a government propaganda video, the PM is not so indirectly saying that the authority is controlled by Castille. That the authority’s strings are pulled by politicians is a given, but having the PM boast about his government’s decisions by using a PA decision as an example is a new thing altogether.

The third major flaw with the video is that barely 72 hours later after it was uploaded, the PA approved a five-storey hotel in the same valley that had just been ‘saved’.

One can easily guess that this latest development will not feature in the ‘Environmental, social and cultural achievements in Malta during April’ video.

This administration can boast about several achievements, but safeguarding the environment is certainly not among them.

The PN will forever be criticized over the disastrous 2006 rationalisation exercise, but what is happening now -  the rampant destruction of the little we have left and the level of greed by developers, who, it seems, are always on the winning side - has reached unprecedented levels.

The worst thing is that only a handful of people have the guts to speak up against the rape of our rural areas.

Here we have to praise the efforts made by the activists of the Moviment Graffiti and Kamp Emergenza Ambjent, who stood up for what is right and made their voice heard at the latest fuel station application hearing. They spoke up about a very serious issue that is not only eating up precious rural land but is also potentially detrimental to our health. One just needs to look at our front pages from this week – we reported on no less than three applications for the construction of new fuel stations on ODZ land - one in Iklin, one in Zejtun and the other in Luqa.

All are totally unnecessary. The one in Zejtun, for example, is being proposed in an area where there are already five other fuel stations.

The fuel station policy is currently under review. Environment Minister Jose Herrera has said that it will be published soon.

Common sense dictates that pending applications should be frozen until after that policy review is concluded. But common sense never reigned in this country, and developers are taking the opportunity to push forward as many fuel stations applications as possible, in the fear that the revised policy might introduce a capping.

Politicians are there to take tough decisions. The first decision should be to suspend all planning processes pending the review. The second should be to say no more fuel stations will be permitted – we have enough and we are supposed to be moving towards green energy anyway.

Only then can the government boast, in its glitzy Facebook videos, about doing something for the environment.