So after 20 years the Hondoq ir-Rummien chapter is closed and all breathed a sigh of relief.

I have been following and reporting on this saga right from the very beginning when we media were taken by seaplane (remember that?) from the Grand Harbour to Mgarr to visit the site. It was derelict then with disused and rusting machinery in the small quarry. Is it still the same?

One thing many do not know is that this is an artificial bay, with the sand brought in when the reverse osmosis plant was set up on the other side of Hondoq. Maybe there is an indication in the name itself – it’s not called a bay.

The original template as I remember it was rather like Santa Maria estate in Mellieha – lots of bungalows spread around. Then many changes intervened both as regards ownership and also architects. The project grew and grew, added a hotel, added more storeys.

And the opposition grew accordingly. I was present at a very heated public hearing held at the local school . Politics got involved too, both national and local.

Maybe what clinched the final decision was that this was one big project with one owner. Maybe this was the way it had to be done so as to have one holistic approach but then even Santa Maria estate began like that but today has rather disintegrated.

Xlendi, on the contrary, has multiple owners and look at how it is being irremediably destroyed. So all those who rejoiced that Hondoq has been ‘saved’ should come down from Cloud 9.

Apart from the massive developments all over Gozo, this morning the Planning Authority announced direct action against Gozo’s biggest landfill, obviously abusive.

Saving Hondoq maybe (though I doubt that – let’s wait a few years) but saving Gozo?

Making fools of themselves

The beginning of the annual Budget debates, apart from the Budget Speech itself, always include a Reply by the Leader of the Opposition and a Reply to the Reply by the Prime Minister. All done in prime time and with each speaker surrounded by the adoring MPs.

It’s mostly a waste of time and pity those who do not switch over to some foreign station.

I had predicted last week that people should not have held their breath expecting something extraordinary from the Leader of the Opposition and I was right.

His speech could have been written by a stagiare following just one website. There was nothing original, apart from the fact that it jumped from one subject to the next without any link or continuity. I pity the media trying to come up with a summary and a heading of what had been said.

As to the Prime Minister’s reply the next day, this continued to reveal an alarmingly naive appreciation of economic facts. I only hope that in his head he moves on a very different level than what he was pandering to the House.

We had a leader of the country making a comparison between how this government is facing the present crisis and how the Gonzi government faced the 2008 economic meltdown.

There can be no comparison. The 2008 crisis was a worldwide crisis which risked a collapse of the West. Today’s crises – the pandemic and the war in Ukraine – though very serious, are not in the same category.

Secondly, you just can’t compare the situation then and the situation now by contrasting what people paid for electricity then and what they pay now without considering also the state of the economy then and the state of the economy now with so many millions added to the national debt. Reasoning like the PM did is how many people look at their financial situations without considering the overall debt they are piling up. I am surprised that not one from the Gonzi administration replied to such a travesty of the truth.

I said last week and I reiterate today that the issue of the price of fuel requires in-depth analysis. On the one hand while it is right to cap the fuel prices for people – something that other governments are doing - on the local scene there are still many heavy issues to investigate which Konrad Mizzi’s and Joseph Muscat’s meddling and the links to private investors have rendered more and more opaque. What will it take to unravel the real situation of Enemed and to put an end to Malta’s growing enslavement to obscure governments and other bodies?

In the 2013 election, when Joseph Muscat came up with cutting down on the price of fuel for families, he found a surefire way of getting people to switch and vote for his party. After almost 10 years we can now see the consequences – next year the government will have to borrow €1,600 million. Next year the whole country will have to fork out €700 million as expenses connected to the debt. This means €1,667 for every person living in Malta. And each one of us has €25,000 as his share of the national debt. (Acknowledgments to Joe Zahra)

Robert Abela did not mention this.

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