Editorial

It is strange, very strange, that cultural heritage was practically ignored in the budget debate on the ministry responsible for education and national culture. Only one sentence was said about cultural heritage, and that was about security measures.

The Superintendence of Cultural Heritage and Heritage Malta, the new agency that is taking over from the Museums Department, were not even mentioned. Neither the Nationalists nor Labour, it seems, thought the subject was all that important for them to go into it.

The omission on the part of the two parties represented in parliament was particularly glaring given the importance they had given to the national heritage when the reform of the sector was debated last March.

Just a few days before the budget debate started, the two leading heritage organisations, Din L-Art Helwa and Fondazzjoni Wirt Artna, issued a joint statement complaining that the budget did not include any financial allocation for the Superintendence of National Culture, which is the regulator of the national heritage. In their opinion, this amounted to a "shabby treatment which has undermined the superintendent's position".

But the government and the opposition were in no mood to lend an ear to the two heritage organisations. They just ignored their complaints and this at a time when the enactment of the Cultural Heritage Bill was seen as a new dawn in the promotion and protection of the island's heritage.

One of the main purposes of that administrative shake-up had been to separate the regulatory and operational arms of the heritage sector, transferring them from the Museums Department to the Superintendence of National Culture and Heritage Malta respectively.

The fact that no direct financial allocation was made to the superintendence will probably mean that the superintendent will end up pleading for funds from the organisations he is meant to regulate.

Neither is there any funding in the budget for the Committee of Guarantee, another body set up under the Cultural Heritage Act to advise the government on heritage issues and coordinate cultural heritage policies.

The only reference to the superintendence in the estimates is in the overview, which says that next year will see the dissolution of the Museums Department and the first operating year of the superintendence and Heritage Malta.

The major business concern, the estimates say, will be the transfer of resources, responsibilities and operations of the former Museums Department to the two new organisations.

The minister had argued during the heritage law debate that the reason why Heritage Malta is replacing the Museums Department is because the former would be able to get more things done more quickly with the funds allocated to it than the Museums Department was able to.

Well, this may very well be true, but what about the work of the superintendence? The two heritage organisations were quite right in raising their complaint before the budget. Now that the debate is over, the two parties' shabby treatment of the subject confirms their concern.