The government needs to abide by the many protections provided to Comino by law and begin giving the island the protection it deserves, the Nationalist Party's Shadow Minister for the Environment, Rebekah Borg, told this newsroom.

Speaking with The Malta Independent, Borg made reference to a recent interview conducted by the Times of Malta with Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Tourism Ian Borg.

In that interview, the Deputy Prime Minister said that the government will be cleaning up Comino, including by adding sanitary facilities and introducing stricter concessions for boat, kiosk, and deckchair operators this upcoming summer.

He had said that 10,000 people are in Comino's Blue Lagoon every day during the months of July and August, and that Transport Malta is compiling a list of commercial operators serving Comino in order to assess their regulatory compliance, boat capacity, and trip frequency in order to ultimately establish a cap on the number of passengers each commercial boat can carry. He had stated that the plan is ultimately to reduce the number of passengers by half.

With that in mind, the PN MP told The Malta Independent that if what the Deputy Prime Minister said is true, "then that is well and good - it's something positive", but she remarked that she does not believe everything will be well and good, as she referred to an article she had written in 2022 in response to assurances made by former Tourism Minister Clayton Bartolo to improve the management of Comino and address its issues.

"He had said in 2022, that things will be different in the island from next summer, and unfortunately things were not different," the PN MP said.

She spoke of the deck chair concessions in Comino and questioned whether they will really begin being taken out by tender.

"Are they really going to abide by the law and protect Comino as it should be? The Kiosks, the people - I have my doubts. If so, well and good, but in the end we're there because we want to see this country be better regardless of who is in the government."

Borg said that fellow PN MP Robert Cutajar had filed a request with the Ombudsman in 2021 to look into works in Comino, with the Ombudsman later stating that the works in question were illegal. Borg remarked that those works were never reversed and remain present to this day.

She questioned how it can be believed that anything will be different now. She described having fought hard to see the concession contracts. "Contracts which are a joke because they are given to friends every year. Is this going to change? I hope so."

Borg said that Comino is "protected when we talk about the environment" (in terms of the law) as it has "a list of protections... but yet, so far, it hasn't been protected".

The PN MP referred to an incident where some people had placed down their towels due to the deck chairs and umbrellas being set up around, and were then subsequently asked to remove the towels. "So enforcement took place against individual people, but there was no enforcement on deck chair operators who were breaking the law. Mind you, it is not illegal for you to place a towel, but deck chairs are illegal."

"This makes me very angry," she commented. "An individual with a towel was stopped, but the deck chair operators were not."

She questioned how it can be said that the environment is being protected, but "history so far has shown us something completely different". She hopes this will change.

She said that there is one infringement after another of the laws that protect the environment.

The first part of the interview was carried in The Malta Independent on Sunday yesterday