The weakest point of successive governments in the last 50 years is their shabby treatment of our environment, our natural resources and energy sector. Their inaction shows that our politicians are acting as if there were no tomorrow.

Our aquifers have become a time bomb while our government is closing its eyes leaving the extraction of millions of cubic metres through clandestine boreholes free of charge. Industry, farmers and some swimming pool owners like it this way.

The fragmentation of our countryside has reached every corner on our islands leaving only some scattered rocks out of reach from our main shores worthy of being called pristine. There is no planning whatsoever, no form of limitation in place to see that our urban and rural areas retain certain characteristics. A 12-storey building in Marsalforn is approved today only to be followed by an application for a 20-storey tower tomorrow. Speculators and the construction industry like it this way and they are very generous with the political class.

Our limited countryside cannot cope with ten thousand hunters making unbearable the life of a tenfold number of tourists and Maltese alike, vying for the same limited countryside. The hunting lobbies like it this way and our political class succumbs.

With this attitude we are heading fast towards total collapse that is so aptly characterised by the blackouts that we are experiencing in more frequent intervals. We all know why the blackouts are happening. Only the administration is in perpetual darkness about this by closing its eyes to the real needs of the vast majority of the population while tenaciously giving the red carpet treatment to the exploiting interests of the few.

Agnes Debono

Kercem