ToonToday: Overdose

Editorial • 09 FEBRUARY 2003

Overkill and lies

The Broadcasting Authority and the media should be awarded ‘the biggest bore of month’ award. No one should be surprised if most people zap to Italian TV stations and purchase foreign newspapers looking for a reprieve from the overdrive on the EU.

It would be no exaggeration to say that Malta’s electorate remain the most informed of all member and candidate states on the European Union.

Ask any educated citizen in the Europe what the acquis communitaire is all about and they will laugh and run away replying that he or she does not know.

We have not realised that we have simply gone overboard with all the info on the acquis.

Too much knowledge can be a dangerous thing.

There is a real danger of the electorate shutting itself off from all the debates, and defending itself against the slogans on Europe and the EU, coming its way.

Perhaps the only messages that stick are the lies cooked up by the ‘NO’ lobby.

The latest one was the invention concocted by Karmenu Mifsud Bonnici about the introduction of hoarding taxes on vacant dwellings if Malta were to join the EU.

His assertion is based on conjecture, and yet he continues to present it as if it were true. The former Prime Minister does not have a shred of evidence to prove his claims.

Notwithstanding the lie, a hoarding tax on vacant dwellings would undoubtedly be a positive measure. It would go a long way to solving housing problems and stabilising the price of homes in Malta.

The protests at Kalkara

The protests at Kalkara mark a return to the culture that heralded the environment movement in the mid-eighties.

It is headed by the controversial monk Mark Montebello a leftist who is more or less unique in being one of the few clerics to voice concern over the environment.

The problem with Mark Montebello, however, is his abrasive style, which puts people off.

He also has a knack of shooting at everyone at the very same time making his crusade difficult to associate with,

He must be made to see that the most welcome development the environment lobby can contemplate, would be a merging of effort, focus and energy.

He may not be the right man to bind the groups together, but his voice and support for this venture would undoubtedly be helpful. He can start off by discarding some of the adjectives and spurious remarks about individuals who share his worries and interests.

And very importantly he must avoid getting entangled in political battles. Surely he must not forget that the real rape of Kalkara took place before 1987 when his mentor Dom Mintoff pulled the strings.

What is left of Kalkara valley should be saved. Not because it is of any ecological value, but because it presents a case study of what is in store for most of our countryside.

To have a buffer that is green is much needed in urbanised Malta.

Over the last 30 years there have been countless attempts to protect the countryside, but every so often we have had to bow down to arguments and excuses that led to the degradation and destruction of large tracts of land.

There are several destructive developments that society at large has accepted: the building of schools on agricultural land, the construction of a largish public hospital, the power station and government housing.

Even though Malta can boast of thousands of vacant dwellings and unused building space.

The steps taken in 1992 that gave birth to the Structure Plan set the foundation for a town and country planning policy that has contained some of the reckless development. But consecutive administrations have failed to stem the tide of mass speculation.