Hondoq turns eco-Gozo into a sick joke!

Published on www.maltastar.com on 23rd July, 2010 by Leo Brincat.

The Church's Environment Commission used the strongest of words to slam Government's proposed development of a hotel, apartments and a yacht marina at Hondoq ir-Rummien.

It made it clear that it was difficult to justify claims that this project would be for the long term benefit of the Gozitans. As well as that the proposed development reflected social insensitivity.

And yet the Commission's in depth report was met with stony silence in the visual, sound and printed media of the Nationalist party.

So much for all their talk of sustainable development. A new lease of life for the environment. As well as Mario de Marco's promise to launch a new environmental policy in the coming eighteen months. Conveniently when we will be almost literally on election eve.

On his part Joseph Muscat did not mince words when commenting on this project a few weeks ago. He dismissed it as totally unsustainable.

On my part I had claimed that it made a mockery of the Eco Gozo concept.

What I found most intriguing was the ambivalent manner in which the Nationalist Party and its eminent spokespersons addressed the issue...or rather failed to address it at all.

The Prime Minister resorted, as is by now customary...to complete silence.

The Minister for Gozo chose to react at a later stage while people close to her are known to have sent reassuring signals to the developers and speculators.

Overtly lobbying for the project, former MEP candidate Vince Farrugia almost literally hi jacked the public hearing held in Gozo, which in the words of another Nationalist MEP candidate was characterised by the dubious techniques that were utilised by the developer to gain ascendency at the hearing.

Nationalist MEP candidate A Deidun lamented that sacrificing Hondoq would be clearly communicating the message that no place is too sacred for development.

While some Nationalist local councillors chose to keep mum on the project - the same way the Parliamentary Secretary Chris Said did too - others had no alternative but to oppose it.

But at day's end what position will the Nationalist Party take?

If the Prime Minister considered it opportune to brief his party delegates about the White Rocks project inspite of having only recently declared in the House that the first people to be briefed about it would be us parliamentarians, why did the PM not hold a similar consultation meeting for the PN's rank and file on the Hondoq saga?

The Parliamentary Secretary for the Environment had been quoted as saying that our environment is too small to afford to suffer any more mistakes than we have already committed in the past.

But when decision time comes whose views will prevail?

Which line will the government nominated political appointees on MEPA's board follow?

On the ODZ saga a close confidant of the PM who works in his private secretariat is allegedly reported to have played a pivotal role in swinging things the cabinet's way at MEPA level.

Will he do the same this time round?

Ultimately what will the Cabinet decide as the best way forward when the Hondoq saga finds itself up against the moment of truth?