I have deliberately kept myself out of the sharp controversy surrounding Tourism Minister Francis Zammit Dimech because I felt that with my record as Minister of Tourism some years before him, any comments I made would have been too heavy-footed. Not that at any time Francis Zammit Dimech or any other Nationalist Minister, except for Minister of Finance Bonello Dupuis in his first budget speech after the change in government in 1987, has shown any respect for my record. Whether Francis Zammit Dimech does or not, that incomparable record for the government and the industry I served, remains unchallenged and unequalled by any other tourism minister to this day.

Those few who, like

Noel Grima (TMIS editorial,

20 August), anachronistically still express themselves as if the world before 1996 was made of combustible gases waiting for the big bang to arrive with New Labour, should finally push down their narrow gullets that previous Labour governments under Mintoff, and even under Karmenu Mifsud Bonnici, were responsible for many achievements most of which are still enjoyed under Nationalist administrations. New Labour, which started off that same way, has long since shed those “big bang” attitudes and now recognises and accepts, some in public and some in private, the achievements of its Labour predecessors. In tourism, my collaborators and I, with the support of the tourism industry I led, left behind a heritage of success for others to build on.

Noel Grima probably estimated that in naming a former colleague Karmenu Vella as “the only man to have been a success in this Ministry”, any comments I would make would pit me against an old friend and that I probably wouldn’t do it. I don't see it that way. No one will doubt that Karmenu was an affable, approachable and hands-on minister well liked by the industry he led. I have not been just a friend but, indeed, an admirer of the way Karmenu Vella has rewardingly conducted his life in politics.

I admit that my rewards come from different sources. I am rewarded by the gratitude of a handful of people, now leaders in the tourism industry, who faced with trepidation the huge problems confronting them as career builders in a faltering tourism environment that eventually became my responsibility as Minister of Tourism and who, though mostly Nationalist, followed my strategies with confidence.

I was thrust into the leadership of an industry that had just lost 250,000 tourists from Britain in one fell swoop just a few months before. With an annual budget of just Lm800,000 that included all salaries and which had to make do for everything else, not the millions available to the Tourism Authority and the Ministry of today, with a difficult Prime Minister with whom tourism was not a favourite, with huge upsets on our way to recovery such as the attack on Libya, which cancelled most of our bookings for the summer of 1986, we exploited every resource of ingenuity we were capable of. We asked Berlusconi for a chance to inform the Italians that we were a peaceful country, far away from the war zone. He provided Mike Buongiorno and his popular show on Canale 5 in which I took part as Mike’s guest and delivered the message. We contacted supportive press people all over Europe who we invited to report on a series of press conferences I gave in most of our incoming areas in Europe. We roped in every Malta specialist in the UK and other Maltese tour operators who specialised in the UK market such as the Fortina people. Michael Zammit Tabona offered me an opportunity to address some 2000 counter clerks (the people at the counters of tour operators who advise clients where to go for holidays when they ask) at a pro-Malta-tourism disco party in Manchester, which his company had organised at a time when Malta needed bookings badly and I took it. The results we achieved – a 26 per cent increase in arrivals in my last year (30 per cent increase in foreign exchange) on top of the 11 per cent increase of the previous year and again a five per cent increase in the year before – safeguarded the careers of those who wanted the tourism industry to be their fortune, put food on the tables of their young families and helped them to fashion their future within the industry. Those results remain to this day, a landmark of achievement in this industry and a beacon for other ministers to try and snuff out with their own success. Some, Noel Grima included, deals with that record as if it was one of the country’s best-kept secret.

My entire career, which started at The Times at the age of 15, has been bedevilled by an array of jealous leeches, some as close to me as my own flesh, who have either claimed paternity for my work or have done their damnedest to obliterate it at least from view. I find a few within the journalistic community, some in broadcasting. For a number of years a group was nestled inside the Broadcasting Authority. Now the nest seems to have relocated to PBS. After all, as a former Chief Executive, I had been the one to give Malta its first three wireless radio stations set up by Maltese, owned by Maltese and run entirely by Maltese. Finally, back to Francis. The problem with Francis is that like his Prime Minister, the Minister of Tourism has lost the confidence and the support of the people he leads. When that happens, it is definitely time to go. No amount of new committees and new schemes will bring back that self-assurance every minister needs in order to perform successfully. Francis doesn’t need help. Like most of his colleagues surrounding the Cabinet table, he needs a very long rest.