I hope that in parallel with the magisterial and police inquiries which were being carried out concerning the horrible accident which occurred in the tourist bus a week and a half ago, an administrative inquiry is going on.
What happened in the approaches to Żurrieq should not be considered as just a hideous, one-off event, so that all which needs to be done is establish what went wrong and what led to it. It could have resulted from the way by which traffic is organised and security is maintained in our roads; from how tourist buses are licensed as well as those who drive them; from how we monitor the way by which companies that service tourism operate... and the rest.
An administrative inquiry, operating in “horizontal” mode, would listen to the submissions of all those who participate in these activities or havesome connection with them. It would consider all relevant factors and come to some decision regarding any improvements to the method of operation in all relevant sectors, in order to ensure that the Żurrieq tragedy is not repeated.
Such an exercise would not merely be motivated by the urge for administrative efficiency. It also follows from a moral duty. We need to see it accomplished, even by way of respect and national soliarity towards those tourists and their families who came to Malta on holiday and ended up terrorised, wounded or worse.
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Whistle blower
Along with others, I fail to understand what the intention is of those who from inside our society, insist that the woman who claims to be a whistle blower about Pilatus bank should not come to Malta. If she stays away, we will never know all her story. Or why her story appears to contradict the story of another claimant for whistle blower status.
Either we want to get all the truth and nothing but the truth regarding Pilatus Bank or we don’t.
It seems to me that whoever is hiding behind the fantasy that were she to come to Malta, the whistle blowerwould be in danger of her life, is actually showing a preference for the truth, whatever it is, never to emerge. One wonders why.
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Should we believe?
Sorry but it is still difficult to believe that the case has been definitively made: regarding the poisoning of the Russian double agent Skripal and his daughter; as well as regarding the chemical attack in Douma, allegedly by Syrian President Assad.
Sufficiently clear proof is yet to be published.
The objections of those who presented alternative versions to explain events were either simply ignored or ridiculed.
The declarations made by the “Western” powers about what really happened or did not, remained vague on the details, dogmatic in their conclusions.
This is no way by which to face up to a crisis.It is obvious that the Russian government has a powerful propaganda machine that rolls forward like a tank in action. Can one trust it?
But the same can be said, perhaps worse, about the “West”’s propaganda system. One need only remember the huge media storms that were mobilised to denounce the mass weapons of destruction that Saddam Hussein was allegedly developing.
Years later the Chilcot report in the UK demonstrated how all this had been fiction.