For a few, intensive, hours on Friday, 25 November, the Mediterranean Conference Centre in Valletta will host the heads of state or government of 53 Common-wealth nations and Queen Elizabeth.
The ceremony at the MCC, which will be broadcast worldwide through satellite links and watched by a potential audience of more than a billion viewers.
It will be a far cry from the building’s origins: as the hospital where the Knights of Malta practised their other, although less famous, primary aim of being hospitallers, where Maltese patients were cured, free of charge and with silver service, by the Knights.
Long in disuse, then used as an examination hall, election counting hall and for various other purposes, the building is now a fully-fledged conference centre.
It has housed important conferences before, such as a Crans-Montana summit in 1996 and a Euro-Med summit in 1997 attended by such people as Yassir Arafat, Alia Izetbegovic and Joel Levy.
CHOGM will, however, beat them all. A glance at who will be there is more than enough to demonstrate how important the MCC will be on that day: Queen Elizabeth, Tony Blair, the prime ministers of Australia, New Zealand and India, the President of Pakistan and so many others.
And a short look at the day’s programme will also show the sheer number of people who will be involved.
The heads of state and of government will arrive at the building and be greeted by the Commonwealth Secretary General and Prime Minister Gonzi. The Queen will arrive last. They will take their place on the main stage of the huge Republic Hall (the small stage for the entertainment, with its famous water feature, will be in the middle, between the main stage and the audience) for the opening ceremony.
Short speeches will be made by the Queen, Malta’s Prime Minister and Commonwealth Secretary-General Don McKinnon. These will be broadcast live to the world.
Then the official photograph of the Queen and the heads of state and government will be taken.
At this point, two simultaneous events will take place: the Queen will host a reception, or tea party, for Malta’s civic society, while the heads of state and government will proceed upstairs to the newly-renamed MA Grima Hall (it used to be Boffa Hall) for their formal executive session.
The lounges near MA Grima Hall are being reserved for
foreign ministers and their delegations for possible bilateral meetings.
A total of 1,300 people are invited to the opening ceremony, most of them no doubt the delegations accompanying the heads of state and government. The list of invitees for the civic society tea party will undoubtedly be huge. This means that, considering the official guests, the civic society guests, security, catering and media, there will be anything up to 2,500 people milling around in the building. The ushers and liaison officers with each delegation will have a considerable headache ensuring that guests don’t get lost or go to the other venue.
But the staff at the MCC is used now to handling big crowds, so they are quite confident that it will go off well and all to the credit of Malta.
Malta to benefit from CHOGM renovation
Ultimately, little Malta will be the beneficiary of the hosting of CHOGM.
This can be seen very clearly at MCC. What has happened there, as MCC chairman Peter Fenech explained in an interview, was that the whole programme of work planned for 2005 and 2006 was brought forward to this year, due to CHOGM.
No less than 18 separate projects have been undertaken, and most of them are already complete. They will all be ready on the day, Dr Fenech explained, which is nothing short of a miracle considering that the MCC has just 23 employees and that most of the work was done in-house.
The first thing one notices is obviously the outside: the whole façade of the building has been renovated, and crumbling stones replaced. The 18 windows at first floor level have mostly been replaced and doubled to keep noise out. The same applies to the corresponding 18 windows at ground level.
The entire pavement along the front has been renovated and non-rusting light fittings have been set in, which make the place very beautiful at night (though I did not agree with the poles in front and the poles jutting out of the balconies).
The whole stretch of road from the bell to the MCC entrance has been beautifully tarmacked (though I cannot say the same for the road past the Fish Market to VISET and from VISET to the indescribably dirty, neglected and third worldish stretch of road near HSBC’s Hexagon House and go mobile’s offices, through which most of the buses and cars with delegates and possibly heads of state and of government will pass on that Friday to ease the imaginable huge congestion in Valletta).
The MCC people have other reasons to be proud.
Take the La Vallette Hall, the long hall that runs along the main wall of the building at Minus 1 level (this was where the Maltese patients used to be put, and it corresponds to the equally long hall at ground level where the Knights used to be put).
When the MCC was renovated in 1979, the work had to be completed in 100 days. The workers just did not have the time to carry out the wiring of the place properly, so they built a wall and hid the electric wiring behind it.
This time, the MCC workers removed the wall, thus uncovering the niches next to every bed space, and proper wiring was put in. Indirect lighting has been added, which looked its best during the recent MIDI concert that was held there. Two miles of cabling was used.
Another project about which the MCC can boast is the renovation of the chapel. This has been beautifully restored and Dr Fenech has even managed to obtain a well-preserved Maltese wooden altar which shows off Maltese historic artistic ability and craftsmanship.
Also, the chapel’s dome had never been renovated and being so very exposed to the winds and seaspray, it was in a dire condition. Today, it has been completely restored, and louvres keep the atmosphere inside quite cool.
Security has not been neglected. Everyone inside Republic Hall will have a colour code corresponding to an evacuation door. A full evacuation plan has been drawn up and ushers have been specially trained to get everyone out in an emergency in seven minutes flat.
The airconditioning has also been totally renewed, and hidden away, (much to the relief of the neighbours, who justifiably used to complain) and a second generator has been added, making the building self-sufficient in the event of a power cut.
The lifts have also been completely renovated and can be used by people in wheelchairs.
For the duration of CHOGM, Dr Fenech and his small staff will sleep in the building, hoping that everything goes right. If it does, it will be due to their untiring hard work.
Four conferences, not one
Contrary to popular perceptions CHOGM is not just one conference, that of the heads of State and governments, but four conferences.
As told in the main article, CHOGM proper will begin on Friday 25 November morning at MCC with the Official Opening Ceremony and the first Executive Session for the heads of State and of Government but then the heads of State and of government head to the Radisson Golden Bay Hotel where they will have what they call ‘the retreat’, where they will be alone without foreign ministers and aides so that they can mingle and network more easily with each other, and with the Queen.
Then there are:
The Commonwealth People’s Forum which will be held from 21 to 23 November at MCC.
There will be some 80 stands by NGOs in the long hall so that delegates may be able to see what each organisation is doing.
Almost all the People’s Forum meetings will be held at MCC: in fact, only 3 of the 40 side meetings will be held in other locations.
The Commonwealth Business Forum, as told elsewhere in this issue, will be held at the Malta Hilton but it will have its gala dinner at MCC on 22 November with some 600 guests expected.
The Commonwealth Youth Forum will be held at various venues, including the Cottonera Sports Complex and also in Gozo.