Praise where praise is due

I’m extremely impressed by the Water Services Corporation.

A few days ago, I was sent an urgent SMS message from them.

It warned me that, from the readings they were getting from my water meter, which is connected to them centrally, there was a great probability that my residence had a water leak.

I quickly inspected every nook and cranny in my villa’s rooms to look for a possible water leak. Wonder of wonders, I eventually found out where the leak was.

Had I not been made aware of this by the WSC, given the location of the leak was, there was a great probability that I would not have noticed it until there was major flooding emergency.

A big thank you to the Water Services Corporation.

Raymond Bencini – Żebbuġ

A trip down memory lane

Photo: Shaun Formosa

During the 1980s, in Malta we had a good number of bumper cars and also two carousels in operation, as far as I recall. Today, this is all history and only one amusement bumper car is left. This is usually set up every summer further up from the Buġibba jetty.

Unfortunately, we are not aware of industrial heritage and a quick internet search shows how important such amusement parks are in different countries. Having equipment like this requires a lot of dedication and many skills for its annual maintenance such as painting, electric and mechanical issues. The humidity and being only metres away from the sea make things worse, not to mention the large area needed for storing them throughout winter.

The government should exempt all kind of annual permits and renting of space, thus encouraging the last operators to invest and keep the last masterpieces in working condition. They are definitely an attraction, nostalgia for many and enjoyed by the young generation.

Oliver Mallia – St Paul’s Bay

Tactics vs strategy

In business planning parlance (borrowed from the military), short-term factors are always balanced against long-term plans.

Tactics should never be at the expense of strategy, and vice versa.

Now, we all know that this year will be critical for the long-term health of our economy.

If tourism doesn’t start to take off this summer, then the economy will be dislocated and the long-term strategy of restoring and fostering this golden goose (27 per cent of our economy) will be scuppered.

Everybody accepts this. Well, almost everybody, it seems. Bizarrely, the head of the Planning Authority decided to assume the mantle of custodian of the economy instead of being the steward of sensible construction policy, his primary duty.

Recently quoted in the media, he is on the record as saying that one cannot hold back the development frenzy as the economic health of the country depends on it. As a short-term tactic he has a point… but at what cost to the environment?

At what cost to the health of the all-important tourist market, the overriding long-term necessity?

Dust, noise, tower cranes, construction vehicles littering the neighbourhood and extremely ugly apartment blocks notwithstanding, we plough on regardless.

Everything will work out, won’t it?

The tourists won’t notice, will they? Oh yes, they will.

A well-informed French documentary recently graphically portrayed our love of concrete. The intrusion of construction over all our islands (yes, even, Comino) has reached such a pitch that it can no longer be dismissed.

Visitors (admittedly the few that I meet at present) are all astonished at how, in just months, the building sites have proliferated.

My son, as we were driving through Sliema, remarked, shocked, how “messy” Malta had become.

Time for the PA to get back to what it ought to be doing. Your country depends on you.

David Carrington – Sannat

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