Picnics in Valletta

Valletta, a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1980, is beginning to look like a huge picnic area with all those innumerable restaurants, coffee shops and bars enjoying lawful extensions on public ground.

Some of them abuse these extensions by placing more tables on the street than permitted, leaving pedestrians to solve how to manoeuvre their way around them.

Pushchair and wheelchair users come to my mind. Rain or shine, with the huge awful-looking plastic tents covering the tables, Valletta is becoming a shoddy looking city taken over by the catering business, some of which provide free music till 1am.

This reminds me of the keen competition that went on in the heyday times of past when the Forces’ personnel were attracted to certain bars in Strait Street!Valletta deserves much better treatment.

Anthony Saliba ‒ St Paul’s Bay

Facing upcoming challenges

The main theme of Robert Abela’s speech at the UN General Assembly last September was “getting the future right”. Back home, now, Abela must prove to be at the forefront of translating into meaningful actions and decisions what he stated in that international forum. In short, he must get our future right.

With COVID-19 still far from behind us, though, Malta must pay close attention to the fault lines it has highlighted and deepened and that lie ahead. Abela and his team have decisive choices to make that will determine whether the current state of our nation is sustainable going forward.

Rethinking our economic model, addressing inequality in education, increasing digital literacy rates, increasing the number of internet users, increasing the GDP per capita, increasing the number of women in parliament in an independent and democratic manner, improving energy efficiency, controlling population growth, addressing income inequality, formulating sound infrastructure and planning policies, fighting irregular and illegal immigration and fine-tuning the fight against corruption are all issues that cannot be neglected.

The way Malta deals with these challenges will determine its success. In the past, we have experienced failures. Past administrations of whatever colour made errors in calculation and judgement and got the rug pulled out from under their feet as a consequence. Yet, they got up to try again. 

Our country’s recent history shows that we have had leaders who were resilient, meaning they had the courage to bounce back and take risks despite adversity and initial setbacks. 

Abela and all those who will come after him will have to be resilient in the face of different and new challenges in the coming decades. It is the essential key to success.

Mark Said ‒ Msida