I doubt whether I’m so wrong to suspect that since the turn of the century, Malta has lost many of its traditional skills in engineering and perhaps too in other sectors like construction.

Most such skills at present tie into electronic knowhow for their application but the basic principles and the technical overview on which they rest have not changed. You acquire them by instruction and practice received as of a young age in school and as an apprentice.

With the closure of the Dockyard and of a number of technical institutions, as well as with the decline of manufacturing, less young people are getting to specialise in engineering sectors. The situation would have been worse had there not been enterprises to maintain and repair aircraft which kept alive the practice of certain skills.

However if I’m correctly informed, part of the problem is that less and less young people are interested in finding a job that is related to engineering technology. If this is the case, a huge effort should be undertaken to build up the prestige and highlight the importance of the sector. This would serve to promote the attractiveness of a career in it. Otherwise, we could end up depending on foreign workers to meet our basic technical requirements as a nation.

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SECURITY FORCES

The argument is becoming clearer: we need a radical and deep investigation of how we are operating the island’s internal and external security systems. The inquiry would need to cover the workings of the police force, the army, the secret service as well as those services that monitor economic and other crimes.

The aim of the investigation would not be solely to determine where matters are being done well or badly; or to establish whether spending on security is giving adequate returns.

There is also a need to understand whether the standards that define how security exercises get conducted are fit for purpose; how they compare with the standard operating procedures of security administrations in other countries; and how we could engage the organizations involved to follow a strategy of modernisation in all they do, while guaranteeing that they maintain a full professional integrity in their operations.

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REGARDING LIBYA

I really hope that the peace conference about Libya turns out to have been successful and that the measures it sought to launch will deliver a ceasefire in the country, leading to a united government that is accepted by all.

That’s what I hope truly, but I’m not so optimistic. The hidden agendas of the powers in action there have for too long allowed the country’s turmoil to build up; the same powers were indeed directly responsible for its creation, starting with the civil war itself. To make matters worse, too many special interests have developed within Libya during the confusion of the past years. They now consider that they would lose if peace were established and have every incentive to encourage fighting and to promote trouble.

The great instability that has persisted in past years as a result of this state of affairs encourages the view that a solution can no longer be a diplomatic one, but one that is military. Which is why the fear grows that shortly, the Libyan crisis could become more dangerous than ever before.