A glance at travel fora will show that an oft-repeated negative comment about the island is that it is generally dirty, especially in places frequented by visitors. Civic pride in the upkeep of our rural and urban environment is not one of our community’s strengths.
Cleaning campaigns are often launched as a knee-jerk reaction intended to keep up appearances on the eve of special events involving the visit of some dignitaries. In this case, the VIPs are the tourists who will save Malta’s economy.
The government’s cleaning campaign Insebbħu Malta is, of course, a most positive initiative. Street-cleaning, the removal of graffiti, the installation of street furniture in Valletta, replacement of non-functioning lighting in various parts of the island, the cleaning of beaches and the removal of bulky refuse, even of abandoned cars, should help give the island a much-needed facelift at the beginning of a desperately-needed tourist season.
The campaign, coordinated by the Office of the Principal Permanent Secretary, comes with the promise that “the clean-up will be sustained after the campaign is concluded”. Unfortunately, cynicism about whether that commitment will turn out to be a solid one can be forgiven. Such campaigns have often turned out to be no more than temporary public relations exercises to attract positive local and foreign media coverage.
One question that needs to be asked is whether the 450 workers enlisted to clean up the island will be doing this work on a permanent basis.
If they were deployed from other areas of the public service, one is justified to ask who will replace them in what they were doing previously.
If they are being recruited into the public service for the first time, the government needs to convince taxpayers that it has made a proper cost-benefit analysis to establish that this is indeed the best way to achieve the campaign’s objectives.
The campaign also needs to demonstrate that the cleaning priorities are right. For instance, does it make sense to clean beaches of seaweed and then allow the caravan shanty towns that have mushroomed around the coastline to dump sewage into the sea? These caravans have become permanent fixtures around our shores and are ruining their beauty, besides polluting the sea and land where they are located.
Air pollution is another reason why the country is often labelled as dirty by some of those who visit us, especially from countries where the communities’ civic values are more ingrained. Heavy vehicles, especially those involved in the construction industry, often pollute the air and the roads with dust and diesel fumes despite sensible transport regulations.
If we believe that cleanliness is next to godliness, we need to promote a culture of civic pride and we need to make sure that those who dump waste in all the wrong places, those who pollute the countryside and the air and those who break sensible civic regulations are made to pay for their selfishness.
Renewing Valletta’s street furniture, and ridding beaches, roads and rural spots of unsightly rubbish, will be an improvement on the way we project our capital city and country to visitors. But, in parallel with the physical cleaning effort, the Insebbħu Malta initiative needs to promote a change of culture, a lasting improvement in civic behaviour.
The campaign must be comprehensive and permanent, having well-defined regulations that promote good civic behaviour and strict enforcement that punishes abuse.
The government will have to prove that it has launched the initiative not simply to satisfy tourists but out of respect for the island’s residents.