“Branding Malta” – I laugh and cry at the same time.

As the buses do not pass through St Anne Street in Floriana, I have to walk to Valletta through the organised disorganisation of the so-called bus terminus, where buses, taxis and even karrozini are washed with soap and water. This dirties the whole area from where the hundreds of thousands of cruise liner passengers start their walking tour of Valletta after being dropped off from their coaches near the War Memorial in Floriana.

These tourists get a bad first impression that Malta is a dirty and disorganised country resembling a third world “souk” through which they have to find their way, risking their lives with buses entering the terminus and parking in a haphazard way.

Once, a bucket full of dirty water was thrown on me and other pedestrians. In addition, they are bombarded with dangerous-to-health pigeon droppings and urine from cab horses, as well as smokey black fumes from rickety buses.

The tourist authorities should leave their air-conditioned offices and see with me the above bad advert for Malta. I wrote a memo to the ADT and the Tourism Ministry with detailed suggestions on how to improve the situation, but nobody took heed.

A committee of the high-ups of the ministries responsible for the environment, tourism and traffic should meet. If I was on it, I could produce a report in a week. As big projects take time – at least to take effect – simple decisions could be taken immediately to stop giving the bad impression of a dirty and disorganised Malta for passengers to report back to their friends overseas.

To add insult to injury the streets of Floriana that lead to the capital Valletta have been patched by stone spalls instead of hot asphalt. Those spalls are still used only in third world countries and not in world heritage cities.

Reuben Bonello

Floriana