So they finally admitted their own incompetence and they did it in the worst possible way.
After the social media had been inundated with photos of tourists peeing in a garage entry across the way from the gleaming high-class Mercury Tower, and others enjoying high jinks in the dead hours of the night on street furniture in the same area, and fights erupting for no discernible reason in Paceville, the minister had had enough.
Some sort of agreement was reached with Italy and some Italian policemen have come over to help control the more exuberant of their countrymen.
It is clear the minister realised the Maltese bobbies on their own could not ensure law and order on the island.
That's a clear admission of incompetence. And it's not the only example.
The minister for transport first made a mess of things on land and caused, is still causing, an island-wide daily traffic jam. Then he set his eyes on the sea and made another mess.
First he came out with a programme to get people to surrender their driving licence and get paid for this. Then it was discovered there was no money budgeted for this and the programme thus had to be blocked.
Then the minister came up with a plan for high-speed sea connections between Gozo, Sliema and Bugibba utilising the recently restored Bugibba breakwater. He launched a tender that is now being contested at court by one of the principal operators of the sector.
Next: the Minister for Energy beset by the Central Bank urging the government to scale back the subsidy on energy prices, now faces a virulent barrage of criticism over yet another summer of power cuts.
Editor Caroline Muscat commented: "Cables melted again! Lights out. Heat galore. You wouldn't run a company the way this government runs the country. Miriam Dalli, I hope you're suffering too."
As for the health sector we have a brand new hospital at Paola which cannot be used so many are the faults that still need to be corrected. And a whole hospital, St Luke's, collecting dead birds and dust with its marble floors and stairs.
And that's not counting the Film Commission and its unaccounted funds. Though perhaps one needs a stronger word than inefficiency.
But to top it all, the Minister of Finances, whose position puts him above the other ministers and under whose remit Malta's public debt doubled to €10.9 billion, came out strongly against the employees of the new national airline for taking industrial action which might also include a strike.
He was told by opinion writer Paul Bonello: "Listen to the latest outburst of Minister Clyde Caruana.
"It is time for people of goodwill in this country to make their voice heard against this bullying and greed," Clyde Caruana said.
"Sur Caruana, people of goodwill, albeit in a minority, have been voicing their abhorrence of the greed displayed by most members of the Cabinet and their cabals since more than 10 years but we do not seem to have one iota of repentance, correction or restitution, but rather ever more manifest pigging out. That starts from the remuneration package of KM Airline's David Curmi that you so vigorously tried to cover up.
"The result of so much lavish and outrageous spending you tacitly allowed as Minister of Finance - almost in equal dose as that demonstrated by your predecessor Prof. Scicluna - you should realise you can never have any degree of moral authority to enable you to control the contagion triggered by the greed and lack of good governance your government has so flagrantly committed.
"You sow the wind and you get the tempest.
"Karma will increasingly catch up with your dishonest government."
History corner
The survival of the archive of the Roman Inquisition in Malta
A paper by historian William Zammit explains how a combination of determined effort and historical accident resulted in the survival of one of the most complete archives of the workings of the Roman Inquisition, spanning the mid-16th century to the end of the 18th.
This was originally published in the 60th Anniversary of the Malta Historical Society: A Commemoration by JF Grima. 2010.
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