Alternattiva Demokratika organised an ecological and agricultural fest at Xaghra il-Hamra yesterday to celebrate the government’s U-turn on the proposed golf course.

In the opening speech of this celebration, AD chairperson, Dr Harry Vassallo said, “This is another victory for AD, for civil society and for all those who voted for EU membership. AD was the first to alert the EU Commission about this senseless proposal for a golf course on this natural heritage site and until few weeks before the government u-turn the European Commission was pressuring the government to give up the idea of converting this land into a golf course”.

“Without being represented in Parliament and by working together with civil society, the farmers of Manikata and the NGOs, Alternattiva Demokratika managed to effectively resist the development of two golf courses on pristine agricultural land. Alternattiva Demokratika has achieved all this without parliamentary representation: imagine how much more we could accomplish with it,” Dr Vassallo added.

“However the government and MEPA give up on such ventures only very rarely as was shown by the case of the development zones extensions and the recent approval by MEPA of the Fort Cambridge project, the Pendergardens project and very recently the Ramla l-Hamra development in Gozo. We now urge the government to have the courage to make public the results of the studies it commissioned. After all, these studies were paid for with the tax-payers’ money.”

Dr Vassallo said, “It is obvious to all and sundry that the party in government will not cut the hand that feeds it, therefore the interests of a handful of contractors will always prevail over the right of the remaining part of the Maltese population, to enjoy what is left of our natural heritage. This is why victories such as this are extremely rare occurrences.

“With Alternattiva Demokratika – The Green Party represented in Parliament, I can promise civil society more of this. I can promise civil society that projects, which would never be approved in any European Union Member State, will be rejected by the Maltese Authorities.”

Dr Vassallo added, “It is obvious that for this to happen MEPA will have to be reformed; in fact I would like to take this opportunity to announce that MEPA reform will be one of the key stones of AD’s electoral programme for the forthcoming general election, something none of the other political parties have the courage to do.”

“AD’s plans for MEPA reform include: the splitting up of MEPA into two different autonomous authorities: one responsible for environment protection and the other for development control; in this way the resultant authorities will not have conflicting roles. These two authorities will be under the direct control of two different permanent parliamentary committees and in this way they will be publicly accountable and totally autonomous and free from government interference, which more often than not is dictated by the electoral interests of the party in government. The MEPA board, which is responsible for most of MEPA’s distasteful decisions, will be totally reformed in such a way that it will include representatives of civil society and technically competent people, rather than political appointees and people who are there to protect the interests of the party in government,” concluded Dr Vassallo.