The groans could be heard not just in Comino but across Malta and Gozo as well as, no doubt somewhere in the bowels of government.  Our Tourism Minister had just made yet another pronouncement on the dance of the deckchairs on Comino. As always, another veritable word salad to add to the smorgasbord of inanities about that blighted island and its doomed lagoon.

Or instead, it could have been a statement on the costs involved in the Mediterranean Film Festival or the contentious film rebates or the attractiveness of St Pauls Bay for tourists.

If it wasn’t so truly awful it would be uproariously comic. Sad to say, we have to assume that said minister is deemed by some to be a serious office holder in a serious government. Tragic.

That someone so deeply superficial should be in charge of that vital sector - tourism - upon which much of the present and future well-being of this country heavily depends is breathtaking.  It speaks volumes as to the intent and agenda of this current Castille regime.

Beyond the immediate issues involved, it raises fundamental questions on how ‘policy’ and ‘strategy’ is actually formulated by this regime.  Recent announcements on Malta’s future population base, the need for ‘quality’ foreign workers and tourists (whatever this might mean) or the ever-useful ‘rethinking’ of the fantasy Gozo tunnel offer a clue. 

‘Policy’ seems to be designed by Ministers from the top down, making statements on the hoof.  ‘Policy’ seems to be plucked from thin air to suit regime needs on any given day (or hour). Be it the need to divert attention from various ongoing frauds and rackets, the need to attack foreigners for their various ‘failings’, or the need to appear firm and resolute as the regime disintegrates publicly. 

‘Policy’ is no longer a considered, researched, or tested strategy for developing this land in any meaningful way. It is rather a short-term political band-aid intended to plug holes in the ‘good ship’ Labour.  ‘Policy’ is designed to maintain trough access for the anointed while maintaining the existing (but diminishing) base of regime support in the face of never-ending scandal.

‘Policy’ is designed to buy or shore up that support through payments, jobs, appointments, sinecures, permissions, non-enforcement, or straight racketeering.

Witness the regime’s response to the now legally proven and despicable disability benefits scandal.

This is no way to administer, let alone develop a country, but this is to state the blatantly obvious. Personally, and from experience, I know this is not what Maltese want for their land, but…

So, where are the alternate real policy options and why are they not being hailed from the rooftops of our land. Where stand our key civic, social, professional, and religious organisations? Why is the heavy lifting of democracy being left to the NGO sector, the independent, non-state-controlled media, and a brave cohort of Maltese citizens and residents?

Where, for example, is the searing critique of the recently published, 44-page, ’10 year’ Gozo Regional Development Strategy with its ‘junior school’ SWOT analysis of the island? The list of enumerated threats faced by Gozo is straight from a Disney playbook, one that predictably avoids all the real threats.

The flashiness of this, no doubt costly, document (especially its carefully crafted photographs and visuals) and the ‘apple pie and motherhood’ nature of its 40+ goals demand a rigorous assessment against the reality that is Gozo.

Upon reading and re-reading the document, I wondered whether it was AI-generated or written by a PR agency, as distinct from being imagined and created by actual people with actual experience of actual Gozo.  

For example, the chapters on spatial planning and sustainable urban development, on rural development and on sustainable tourism cry out for a reality check.  A related need is for those chapters not included in the strategy – those on power, its manipulation and misuse in Gozo, on rampant and unregulated construction, on the abuse of the workforce (local and foreign) and on the island’s failing infrastructure to be added.

The document is loaded with phrases such as ‘Without Gozo’s identity there is no Gozo’, ‘…innovative methods of sustainable construction’, ‘Preserve Gozo (sic) unique characteristics…’, ‘Make Gozo a better place to live and work’, ‘Hand over a sustainably managed environment to future generations’, ‘Shift from mass tourism towards higher quality tourism’ which invite ridicule.

The document is suffused with much vacuous (and insulting) waffle but then, we must face the probability that this is nothing more than another fake ‘policy’ statement offered as yet another expensive and elaborate distraction. 

I am reminded as so often in official ‘policy’ pronouncements of the retort – all fur coat and no undergarments.

As the cynic in me might say – ‘Policy, me arse’.