I was one of the first to raise controversies about the need to clear conflicts of interest out of public management. Still we need not go over the top, whether we act in good or bad faith.

To attract foreign direct investment in our direction we need to activate all contacts we have. When a genuine investment interest emerges, we should be prepared to back it with all means at our disposal. Compared to our competitors in this field, the resources we candeploy are hardly enormous.

For instance in the seventies of the previous century, it was good statecraft for the then Labour government to encourage Maltese agents of foreign firms to get their principals to consider investing in the island. Unfortunately the relevant policies then went into overdrive and provided scope for abuses when they tried to induce new investment in exchange for the right of access to the local market.

In those days, leading businessmen like Valhmor Borg, Joe Cassar, Sonny Borg and others extended their services to the government and brought their contacts to Malta with a view to encouraging them to launch new investments. Naturally, abuses could have happened, but on the whole, the country was well served by their interventions. New investments materialised. Nobody believed there was inevitably a conflict of interest inwhat went on.

Subsequent governments carried on with the same approach even if it had become less effective due to the neo-liberal policies that were then becoming prevalent. 

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Airlines

Brussels Airlines, the Belgian outfit which had taken over where Sabena left off, is itself to be taken over by Lufthansa, which already had 48 per cent of the company’s equity.

The Belgian media raised a fuss. Politicians tried to calm matters.

The claim is that Belgium will be losing its national air carrier. It will now be run according to the strategy of a bigger foreign company.

Still the fact is that the airline which is carrying the biggest volume of passenger traffic out of and to Brussels is at present, Ryan Air.

Another claim is that Zaventem airport in Brussels will be losing the support of an air company which necessarily regarded it as its home airport, given the company is or was Belgian.

Other arguments were advanced. On consideration, they certainly do not sound new.

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Turtles

The story of the turtles that managed to hatch in the middle of Golden Bay and then waddle out into the horizon was a good one. All those involved in the effort to ensure that the place where the mother turtle chose to deposit her eggs was well taken care of, showed an admirable commitment. It enabled embryos to mature and hatch in good shape.

Still it’s quite easy to sum up the reactions coming from different quarters;

On the religious right: how ironic – we do our best to safeguard the birth of a clutch of reptiles in a world which promotes contraception and abortion...!

On the righteous left: the commitment to give turtles the best opportuniites available is clear, but why don’t we give it also to people...!

And at another level, one could reflect about how we’ve been told the baby turtles could come back in some twenty years to deposit their own batch of eggs for hatching. However, will they then be able to recognize where they’ve arrived? ... if the area is overcrowded with umbrellas or if forty storey structures have been built on the beach meanwhile?