From Mr J. Portelli

Dear Dr Alfred Sant, you are proposing a golf course and a yacht marina for Gozo. Obviously, like your counterpart Dr Lawrence Gonzi, you meet the Gozo Business Chamber and the Gozo Tourism Authority, whose first interest is money. These people give you information according to their interests. You will not be able to build a golf course or a yacht marina without private investment, let alone run it. Therefore it is only private investors who will do it.

Only two private investors have applied for a golf course and a yacht marina. Victor Borg at Ta’ Cenc and Gozo Prestige Holidays Ltd at Hondoq ir-Rummien. So it is very likely that these are the two places where the golf course and the yacht marina will end up. Ruining Ta’ Cenc is your plan, Dr Sant, and spoiling Hondoq ir-Rummien, when it can easily be rehabilitated as a national park. And who will believe you when you say a golf course, a yacht marina, and no further development.

Other things will follow as happened in the case of the San Lawrenz Hotel and the then Duke of Edinburgh Hotel. Will these big babies keep quiet without a treat? And even a golf course alone will ruin the natural aspect of Ta’ Cenc and a yacht marina will inevitably pollute the clear waters of Hondoq.

Dr Gonzi, you also are very silent about these issues. You talk loudly about rehabilitating Maghtab, which is good. (You should also talk about rehabilitating Il-Qortin at Xaghra, Gozo not dump rubbish so high that it is seen from Ramla Bay). But more importantly, you should talk about protecting what little natural environment we have left.

Stop development outside the development zones.

And you voters don’t be blinded. Fishing, fishing, fishing. Fishy, fishy, fishy. They are fishing for your votes. Don’t you smell something fishy? Or has your fine sense of smell been saturated with savoury snacks?

If you have the natural environment at heart, vote for it. Let us rock the boat and tell all and sundry that we are responsible enough to stand up and be counted.

Joe Portelli

NADUR