why does your tourism industry need handouts from europe? you have an island in the sun.

130 million

Shouldn’t heads be rolling?

Which, by the way, they finally have had to admit will not affect Valletta’s status as a UNESCO World Heritage site.

To a third world country called Sudan.

Yes, I assumed he had no life experience, or indeed international experience for that matter. I was just pulling you up on the mature age student issue even though I know you weren’t necessarily having a go at us all.

[Daphne – I would hardly do that. I first went to university at 29.]

Made a couple of corrections to my name, apologies for the wrong spellings before.

@ Anon
I did not really make arguments or comments, I just asked a couple of questions.

Do you really see this guy “talking about the future”?

http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20120902/interview/-Let-s-talk-about-the-future-.435227

His political argumentation consists only of criticising GonziPN, and when this fuel runs out, he is going to be left without much to say or do in politics.

And I do not see any life experience in his attitude to politics.

Perhaps he was getting life experience, something most Maltese lack.

I don’t share your argument where you ask what he did in those years, although I know nothing of his particular case. I would assume there were other reasons for him graduating later as, being Maltese, I doubt he purposefully sought life experience.

[Daphne – In fact he was not. He was in Had-Dingli, which is nice, but there is not much on offer in terms of life experience. The reason most people leave the law course a few years later than standard is generally failure and repetition, with possibly also a delay in actually getting into the course after a struggle to obtain the mandatory entry requirements, as with MEP candidate and ex Super One reporter Charlon Gouder, whose final examinations coincide this spring with the EP elections. That should go marvellously well for somebody so….not bright. Ian Borg may have been getting life experience, but matters indicate otherwise.]

I have just taken exception to your comment about graduating after the age of 24. I am still studying, and I’m no spring chicken. In fact, a courageous government would make a study-year abroad for those studying at university compulsory. The Institute of Tourism Studies has done this for aeons and the industry, and society in general, have benefitted greatly.

Crucially, the government thinks that it can use EU funds only as a way of implementing its electoral manifesto. It has created a new IT system called (MIS) to help it manage its electoral promises and is giving priority to the implementation of EU projects.

1. The Maltese electoral cycle and the EU budget cycle are different (one is 5, and the other is 7 years, starting and ending in different dates). If their aim is to use EU funding for this electoral-driven funding, many funds will be lost post-2017 as there will be no plan for them. Addio il-‘mitejn miljun’ ta’ Ian Borg.

2. They are going to create a huge system which will be confusing and too large to manage.

3. The skills/people needed to implement EU and ‘tal-maifest’ so-called ‘deliverables’ are different, and so are the processes.

4. The processes needed to approve manage-during-implementation and manage-when-completed EU project vs a Malta one are completely different too. Look what’s going to happen with the gas power station. To satisfy the self-imposed 2-year timeframe it is not only funding for the gas pipeline which will be lost, but also that for the interconnector as it will be made redundant and hence Malta may have to return the money already taken and used in the work already done.

5. Given the calibre of the ‘persons of trust’ the government has chosen, who only care about the manifesto and think that EU funds are just a (excuse my French) ‘zejza biex terda’ minnha’, the non-renewals and transfers of competent people – well it’s prone to be a disaster.

6. Most importantly, the EU’s thematic objectives and their degree of importance (hence how much money can be used in a project, and the amount of co-financing which may be obtained) is different from that in the electoral manifesto

7. Ah yes, last but not least, the so called ‘MIS’ tool is just a copy/paste of the manifest elettorali ta’ Malta Taghna Lkoll (hence rigidly copied and won’t be altered even when difficulties are encountered ‘ghax hekk weghdna’). Work is distributed to people in ‘positions of trust’, for implementation, in the same way UN food aid is given out in war-torn zones. Again, imagine the calibre of thought behind this system. Consequently, you can imagine the difference between Malta’s partnership agreement which was heavily negotiated upon by the Gonzi administration for the 2014-2020 programming period and this ‘ktieb tal-weghdi’.

I rest my case.