Haphazard roadworks
Infrastructure Minister Aaron Farrugia must be living on the moon. How can he say that works take between three and four weeks?
If he were to come to Triq is-Sidra, Swieqi he would recognise the moonscape immediately. We have suffered dust, noise and the inconvenience of driving around looking for a parking place – as we can’t use our garages or car ports – for over four months now.
The joke making the rounds is that maybe works will finish by December, as a Christmas present.
Doesn’t Farrugia read the papers? People complain from all over Malta. For example, from Mosta, Birkirkara and, lately, from Kalkara.
Who is he taking for a ride? Not us, I can assure him.
Things are done without due planning. Streets are left with no entry signs when there is no alternative route as the only street that can be used is often blocked by a crane.
Come on Infrastructure Malta, wake up from your slumber and start showing some respect for us residents!
Anna Busuttil – Swieqi
Tourism road map
I read with great interest the report about the recent Times of Malta business breakfast meeting about tourism. All the blah-blah said there does not make up for what the present situation of the industry courageously needs.
It is not only blah-blah that is needed to reduce numbers (quantity) in favour of quality (high spending) but also tangible and visible measures by policymakers and politicians.
Here are some examples. The Planning Authority should issue no more permits for new hotels of a less than five-star rating to be built… by anyone.
The Malta Tourism Authority should assess, and be itself assessed, as to how tangibly it is managing to achieve the objective of bringing over higher-spending tourists. There’s a lot of dead wood there.
The Malta Hotels and Restaurants Association and other lobbies with clearly vested interests should not be heeded too seriously when they speak about maintaining a more-of-the-same situation.
No more permits should be given for the present low-quality foreign workers who are being brought over to work in the industry. Concurrently, the Institute of Tourism Studies should totally reengineer its focus on producing high quality staff.
The overall economic policy – as in the case of the building and construction industry –should be clearly aimed at downsizing, not continuing to brag about generic increases in the industry.
Of course, there are many other measures that need to be taken to give tourism in Malta a total volte face. But it is only policymakers who are courageous enough – described else-where as kamikaze politicians – who will accept this and act accordingly. And Malta simply does not have enough of these… or any.
John Consiglio – Birkirkara
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