How much more a hypocrite can one be in stating the importance of creating jobs, the lifeline and livelihood of a family and being an integral part of one’s identity?
Sweet talk Dr Jason. I hail from Tarxien and my aunts, uncles and cousins, still live in those parts. Now let me be frank with you, as we from Tarxien are known to be. Dr Azzopardi your piece entitled ‘A Zest for the job’ (1August) is all bull.
Last year on 9 January (a Friday – the beginning of a weekend) his highness and his Majesty another Minister, were present on site, determined to destroy the Magic Kiosk Restaurant in Sliema.
Can someone tell us why the Magic Kiosk was the only catering establishment in Malta which did not have its lease renewed and was forced open in the early hours of the morning, ransacked and pulled down over the weekend, when the law courts were closed?
The Magic Kiosk was paying two half-yearly rents for that site, as I assume all other similar establishments were doing. For sure, it was not occupying government and citizens’ property illegally, as I assume no one is doing right now.
Why wasn’t Dr Azzopardi concerned at all about us employees then? Is it because his thoughts were on the EU candidates’ elections at that time? So some wise guys from your group tried to impress and influence ‘Joe Public’ with another fountain in an empty square. And what a blunder it turned out to be for your party. Was there any need for an open space in that area, when just across the road passing through a car park-square, there lies the longest stretch of paved coastline on this island.
Maybe there was some other motive behind this solitary and tyrannical action. At least that is the perception among the public. Has it never occurred to you that if your Lands Department gave the tenant half a chance, he would have surely downsized it, by refurbishing the place? Thus our kind and noble government, would still be collecting rents, licence fees, VAT, water and electricity bills, gas bills, taxes and tariffs, N.I. contributions and God knows how much more. But most of all, the business would still be employing people who purchase goods from local companies, thus helping the employment factor indirectly too.
Incidentally, a smaller kiosk was sketched on the first site plan submitted to Mepa. Why was it never built? There are loads of questions that need to be answered about the Magic Kiosk saga.
Dr Jason, if you and your colleagues really believe that removing the Magic Kiosk from that site was a wise and magnanimous decision, then why not repeat it on all the squares, pavements and open spaces, that are being utilised by similar establishments?
Louis Scicluna
Sliema