Tourism Minister Clayton Bartolo and Film Commissioner Johann Grech are trying hard to justify how a total of €46.7m in taxpayers’ money is being given to the producers of the Gladiator sequel.

Bartolo fumbles when he is asked the question, attempts to put the blame on the Opposition – “after all”, he said in comments to this media house a few days ago, “it was the Nationalist government that introduced this scheme” – and veers away from giving a direct response.

He sets out giving warnings that there should be a stop to this “attack on the film industry” which employs hundreds of people, but then fails to explain how this kind of money could not have been more useful were it to have been invested in health, education or any other sector.

At least Bartolo had the temerity to face journalists. Conversely, Grech hid behind a five-minute video uploaded on the social media to make his point. Speaking like a politician, and using patronising clichés, Grech ended up attacking all those who raise questions on how the film industry in Malta is run.

Bartolo and Grech should find the time this morning to read what the President of the Medical Association of Malta, Martin Balzan, had to say. In comments carried in today’s edition of this newspaper, Balzan says it would have been better to have spent those millions on patients, rather than hand it over to Hollywood.

Balzan was highlighting the difficulties that are being faced at Mater Dei Hospital, which has grown too small to cater for the demands. In spite of being “young” – the hospital was opened in 2007 – and in spite of having an oncology wing added in 2014, there are space problems at the hospital, so much so that what should be “temporary” makeshift wards have become a permanent fixture.

Yet, these improvised wards do not offer the same comfort as the others and, although efforts are being made to improve the situation, it will never be enough to put them on the same level as the rest of the hospital. There is a need for a long-term investment in the health sector, Balzan said.

Those €47m would have gone a long way to ease the “crisis mode” (Balzan’s words) that Mater Dei Hospital is facing in terms of space. An additional wing to the hospital would be possible with that kind of money, and this is why people are “shocked” when such stories break out.

It must be recalled that, earlier this year, the health sector was in the spotlight for the wrong reasons when a judge rescinded a deal which had seen three public hospitals passed on to the private sector.

It is public knowledge that €400m were passed on – again, from taxpayers’ money – for St Luke’s Hospital, Karen Grech Hospital and Gozo General Hospital to be run privately, but an exercise has since been launched on the request of the Prime Minister to find out how that money has been effectively spent.

The government has also made a big deal, earlier this summer, when it pompously said that the investment in the energy distribution network would increase from €15 to €30m next year. It was trying to quell complaints after several localities were left without power for many hours, and on different days and nights, during a heatwave in July which, we were told, damaged underground cables. The additional sum to be spent on an attempt to ease the discomfort of having no electricity in the middle of summer is less than one third of the cash rebate that this film will be receiving.

The government, Bartolo in the forefront, and Grech right behind him, makes it all look glamorous, saying that millions more are being pumped into the Maltese economy from the film industry. But when one realises that only a fraction of the film’s entire expenditure makes its way locally, it becomes clear that not all that glitters is turning into the proverbial gold.

The Sunday Times quoted an industry insider as saying that we would be lucky if we manage to end up with €10m in the economy from the film in question. When the cash rebate scheme had not been invented, the original Gladiator film in 1999 had reportedly left €21m in the Maltese economy.

Maybe the time has come for a revision of the scheme, which has been described as “the most generous cash rebate in the world”. Most of all, the government, through the Tourism Ministry, and the Malta Film Commission, need to be more forthcoming in their explanations.

In 2021, the Auditor General had harsh words to say on the “extravagance in the use of public funds” by the Malta Film Commission. Maybe now we will get to know more when the AG investigates a Nationalist Party request to see how €137m was spent on foreign beneficiaries by the Malta Film Commission from September 2018 up to this month.

It is, after all, our money.