I have no problem to play it again. It is such a pity that Bugibba has been left to deteriorate so much by way of the maintenance and upkeep of its facilities. I am not the only one to say so, even if I do not have to run a bar or hotel in the area!

We claim that the target overall is to receive high class tourists who will not be interested in Bugibba. Still if we believe we can do without medium and “low” quality tourists, we’re whistling down the wind. We need them in a big way, at least till we have really established ourselves as a first class tourism destination, if we’re ever going to achieve this.

Meanwhile Bugibba and its environs have to be given a new charge, as the facilities they hold are renovated and modernised. A new investment effort, public and private, is necessary. And in the planning that needs to be done, all enterprises active in the area have got to be involved, even as they all will be required, without any exception, to respect  in their activities prevailing environmental norms as well as the regulations that define how their premises should be run.

***

TWO THIRDS

So now it seems like we are caught in a situation where in order for certain official positions to be manned, we need a two thirds majority in Parliament. This was something that the Magi at the Council of Europa and the European Union, experts we are told in the functioning of democracy, wished we would introduce.

As a two thirds agreement was not reached, we are faced with paralysis for certain positions that need to be staffed. The wise Europeans who advised us to take this route... and we obeyed... had failed to read Maltese colonial history of not so long ago, when the same sort of paralysis would be triggered and for the same reasons. They even failed to take on board arrangements in European countries which have safeguards to buffer situations where a two thirds majority is not reached.

After all, do we really need these wise guys to tell us how to manage our own household?

***

POLICE BAIL

I have little knowledge of concrete aspects of Maltese laws and their implementation. For instance, what the reach of a police bail is and under which conditions it applies.

Does it involve that one has to surrender passport and identity card (to the police)? For without them, one can hardly travel in the Schengen zone but if they’re in your possession, there are no controls over where you can go and how.

Does being under police bail mean that to travel abroad, one needs to get permission?

All such conditions and their implementation, it seems to me, can be cleared in an administrative way and whatever has happened in a particular case, can be swiftly established – which is what good governance appropriately applied would bring about. Instead we get an independent enquiry run by a retired judge. Till he has submitted his report, the whole incident would have gotten cold and forgotten.

Still not everybody will have lost track.

We should watch out. We cannot end up under the permanent suspicion that we’re playing hide and seek with the laws that cover protection and security. What we need for such suspicions to become deeper is an ex-judge to present his report when the incident that triggered it would have been long “forgotten”.