STOM Sunday, 04 September 2005

Wide Angle

Getting a horse for the cart

Lino Spiteri

The government appears to be clashing gears in its drive to get a golf course project going in Malta. Media reports tell conflicting stories. These include claims that the Malta Tourism Authority (MTA) is commissioning studies by direct order, rather through the tendering process applicable to the public sector (Malta Today, August 28). On its part the MTA insists that it remains committed to drive the process in a professional manner, fully respecting procedural requirements (The Sunday Times, same date).

The MTA offers two-headed comments. It says that a final decision will be made on the outcome to 'scientific information', meaning an Environmental Impact Assessment. The MTA adds, however, that the outcome of the assessment will not be the sole consideration on which the final decision is made.

Which is which? What shall determine the final decision?

To arrive at the answer one has to bear two things in mind. First, the government brought the site at Ix-Xaghra l-Hamra out of its hat in a manner that makes the expression 'out of the blue' seem far too pale. One odd day towards the end of June the Prime Minister declared the site golfable after MEPA, at unknown cost that also covered specific expatriate services, had finalised the review it was directed to make to identify suitable sites, and had made its considered recommendation. Ix-Xaghra l-Hamra was nowhere in sight among them.

Secondly, when the media reported the Prime Minister two months ago they recorded him as making a very strange statement, which could only have been based on a final decision. The PM said that the government could have concluded the process at that point, and issued a call for expressions of interest immediately. However, he added as if he were conceding a favour, that the government preferred to have further studies in hand so that all the parameters would be clearly laid out when the tender for the development of a golf course was issued (The Times, June 29).

Invited to clarify what he meant by that, given that no call for tenders, regarding any project, no matter how small or big, can be made by the government without all the parameters being clearly laid out, and established procedure duly followed, the PM did not bother to elaborate.

Should the MTA really not be following established procedure to the full, that would be in keeping with the attitude indicated in the PM's presumption that the government was somehow entitled to conclude the process without the parameters being clearly laid out.

On the other hand, irrespective of what was going on in behind-the-scenes meetings, the authorities seem somewhat shaken by the reaction to the initiative it took regarding Ix-Xaghra l-Hamra.

While the determination to press ahead with developing one more golf course in Malta, and another in Gozo remains, there is a more cautious air about how that should be done. The partisan political aspect is covered by the fact that the Opposition too is in favour of golf courses, and has mysteriously reserved its position over the Xaghra l-Hamra location, and the odd way it was selected by the government. But that does not necessarily satisfy society at large.

For example, hoteliers who are in favour of developing two golf courses are coming out against the Xaghra l-Hamra choice.

What is required is not unnecessary controversy, fuelled further by manner in which the government first commissioned MEPA then ridiculed it through bypassing its conclusions. There should be detached and transparent assessment of the viability or otherwise of a golf course in Malta and another one in Gozo. The starting point is an economic question - why golf courses?

Stressing that Portugal and Tunisia have extensive golfing facilities, and that Cyprus is focusing on developing several new courses is not the correct attempt to start making the case for two further courses in the Maltese Islands. Malta is what is. If it is to be developed and marketed seriously, that should be for its uniqueness.

The pre-Budget consultation document stresses, among other things, the potential of our magnificent fortifications. Adding golfing to the attractions of the Maltese Islands should not be dismissed out of hand. Nor can it be blindly accepted as a net plus factor.

The government claims that two more golf courses would generate an additional annual flow of some 30,000 quality tourists. How has that conclusion been reached? How was feasibility calculated? What will be the capital expenditure and running cost of each new golf course? Would the estimated earnings by the golf course operators from the projected additional tourists from among international golfing enthusiasts cover a realistic capital repayment programme and the running costs, and offer an acceptable net return to the course operators?

Is it correct to assume that a golf course, on its own, might not be a viable proposition? Given that there might be indirect benefits to the rest of the economy, would the private operators of the golf courses expect to be subsidised? If so, how, and to what extent?

One should presume that the government has gone into such questions, and also to have carried out sensitive analysis. It has not deigned to tentative answers publicly. The I-know-best syndrome might give an impression of dynamism. It does not give convincing answers. The Prime Minister and his Cabinet were elected to govern, for as long as they are in office. It is their right and duty to decide.

That does not give automatic reassurance that their decisions are right. Governments have to justify their decisions. Not to do so would be worse than arrogance.

The government has not provided the public with a clearly and closely argued case for two more golf courses. Nor has the Opposition, as the government-in-waiting. The government, however, does seem to realise that a golf course on its own is not viable, as various hoteliers are publicly and privately saying.

Without speaking about it loudly to the public, though ministers are probably pointing it out to potential developers, the government has made sure that the Xaghra l-Hamra site includes a section to be allocated for residential development.

That is the bait to lure developers. But, how will the whole dish work out? Developing and selling residential units would be a totally different prospect to an hotelier developing a golf course on the basis of its feasibility as an ongoing operation, like running a hotel.

It is quite extraordinary that the Prime Minister has taken it upon himself to proclaim, Let there be golf courses! without taking the public into his confidence as to why he has committed himself so much, even to the extent of making MEPA pour money down the drain.

After he took his stand as soon as he assumed top office he may indeed have sought and received updated advice based on a proper thorough economic and financial assessment of the proposition, including a cost-benefit analysis to take into tangibles (financial cost and the assumed revenue stream) and intangibles (the negative impact on the environment, and the positive multiplier effects of identified benefits). If so, why not make such advice public?

There is no competitive consideration to hold the PM back. Our competitors in the tourist sphere will not be affected either way thereby. Public opinion would be affected, if it could view the basis of the government's decision. That basis should also be provided by the Opposition, to underpin its own commitment to two more golf courses. Advice from hoteliers is not equivalent to detailed cost-benefit evaluation from a national standpoint.

If there is a sound economic case for golf courses, let there also be full light thrown upon it to justify the decision. The public can then examine proposed locations, in the knowledge that negatives and positives of the project concept have been taken into account, and quantified through professionally recognised techniques made known to it.

Not to do that and to declare a belief in golf courses as an act of faith cannot be the correct procedure.

Do convincing studies that underpin the commitment to golf courses exist? Not only have they not been made public if they do, they have not been referred to at all in the pre-Budget consultation document aimed to yield "a better quality of life" through measures to be taken between 2006 and 2010.

The section in it on tourism refers briefly to "golf course and sports tourism" when describing niche tourism as one of the four key types of tourism that are or could be promoted in the Maltese Islands. The section on Gozo says, very aptly, that the island can be positioned as an agro-cultural destination of international stature.

Among other things the pre-Budget document adds that the government believes that Gozo's tourist infrastructure should be supported by the provision of a licence to open one casino, as well as an additional yacht marina. A golf course does not feature.

There will always be a lot of heat generated by a decision to build golf courses. That which is surging about at present, however, seems to be coming more from the cart, than the horse.

The government, unless it does so itself without further delay, should be pressed to state, in all possible detail, the net economic argument in favour of two golf courses, and to demonstrate what their financial feasibility is based upon.

The Opposition, as the alternative government also committed to more golf courses, should also make its detailed reasoning public. It could steal a march on the government if the latter continued to drag its feet, to assert rather than to prove or at least supply strong evidence.

If a reasonably convincing case is revealed, the locations put forward for the golf courses can be viewed in the round. That cannot be done as long as the people are taken for granted and expected to accept what the members of the political class say, full stop.

The reluctance to try to convince with well-backed arguments, rather than to impose paternalistically, is not healthy at all.

Golf alternatives (2)

Anne Zammit, St Julians.

Conrad Vella (Golf Course Project, August 27) seems to have bought into the fable that money spent by prospective golfers in restaurants, bars, museums, souvenir and clothing shops and on taxis will contribute substantially to the economy.

What are the chances that any golfers, should they come, would stay in a hotel located on the periphery of the proposed golf course where their money would disappear into the restaurants, bars and shops in the same hotel with very little of it being spread to other entrepreneurs? A day off from golfing might find the golf tourist on a tour to a Valletta museum, a stop for coffee or lunch and possibly buying some postcards and a T-shirt.

The real question is this: Can we attract tourists in another way with our historic settings, rural charm, landscapes, biodiversity, not to mention the cleanliness drive due to start in a few months' from now?

The figure repeated parrot-like by Brian Darmanin (writing on the same page) of 30,000 golfers per annum is an invention with no serious backing that even the Tourism Minister admits has its sources from within "the industry". An opinion survey by The Times gave a good indication of how the people do not want this (or any other) golf course. The Prime Minister has made a grave mistake placing the project on the fast track and turning his back on the fact that Malta can do very well without another golf course. The further expansion of golf is too land-intensive for our limited area.

It is as unthinkable as if someone had paved the garigue and proposed a Formula One race track to be built at Xaghra l-Hamra. Golf courses are in fact worse as they bring with them housing developments taking up what little environment remains after the turf is unrolled across our disappearing countryside.

Golf tourists are likely to go to more challenging golf destinations. If the golf course goes ahead we risk losing the visitors who appreciate Malta for its natural features and character which one would hope to find on a small Mediterranean island with something different to offer

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