The pitiful state of St Elmo, as featured in The Times of October 29 and 31, begs the following question: How can we be about to spend €14 million on digging an expensive and non-essential underground museum, when a monument of the importance of St Elmo is crumbling away with nothing being done about it? This site is on the 2008 World Monuments Watch List of 100 most endangered sites "placed at Risk Four on a scale of one to five (five being the most at risk), due to deterioration and damage from lack of maintenance and security, natural aging and exposure to the elements, as well as inappropriate renovations and use".

Our attention therefore, should go to the Monitoring Committee set up in accordance with the principle of shared management (Art. 14 of Council Regulation 1083/2006 of July 11, 2006), which states that the EU Commission is not directly involved in the selection of projects to be co-financed from Structural Funds but the local Managing Authority within the member state. The EU, therefore, does not go into issues as to whether the money should have been spent on St John's Co-Cathedral or St Elmo. It is up to the Monitoring Committee set up by the local government, in consultation with NGOs and Meusac to decide on priorities and which projects are to be selected for funding.

In the case of Malta, it is the Planning and Priorities Co-ordination Division at the Office of the Prime Minister. So, I am now asking the director general, Marlene Bonnici, and the managing authority from the OPM the following questions:

• Who was the spokesman on behalf of Meusac?

• Who was the NGO spokesman on Meusac?

• How did the committee select the St John's Co-Cathedral museum project when so many other monuments in Valletta are still in shambles?

• On what grounds did the Monitoring Committee of the OPM decide that an extravagant project like that of St John's is the more deserving for funding when other important monuments such as St Elmo, which could be saved from further deterioration and sure collapse, were not considered worthy of being funded, albeit not through the competitiveness funds?

• By what criteria did the Monitoring Committee of the OPM decide that an extravagant project like that of St John's is more deserving than the need for the disinfestation and rehabilitation of the Valletta underground network of tunnels which would benefit the whole of Valletta, its residents and visitors?

The Foundation of St John's Co-Cathedral has claimed in its correspondence to Mepa that the monies would be lost if Mepa does not fast-track the applications. However, knowledgeable sources I have consulted denied that this is the case, saying that if the project were abandoned at this stage, the money would go back into the kitty to be re-allocated to other Malta projects. Both projects mentioned above are far more attainable, less extravagant and more conducive to the rehabilitation of Valletta than a quarry dug in its heart to add museum space, a cafeteria and a modern art gallery with the proposed extension of the St John's Co-Cathedral museum.

The government can re-allocate EU funds - if it wants to. The point here is, does it want to? From the deafening silence emanating from Castille it would appear not. The option of waiting "for the results of an Environment Impact Assessment (EIA)" is an extravagance in itself. The thousands of euros being spent to pay for an EIA will be borne by the Church and the State, i.e. the taxpayer.

Mepa is already short of staff, with a lack of enforcement and heritage officers, and yet it has bowed down to pressure and allocated its meagre human resources to prepare an EIA for a non-essential project, which Mepa itself has already declared a non-starter. Moreover, a project for a National Monument for which both government and Church authorities are responsible, and which belongs to the nation and not to the Foundation of St John's Co-Cathedral, requires the approval of the Church Commission for Heritage (Kummissjoni Patrimonju Kulturali Kattoliku), which has declared that "it strongly objects to the proposed extensions of St John's Co-Cathedral museum".

The public has a right to answers on all the above. Brief to-the-point replies will suffice.

Miriam Cremona

Letters - timesofmalta.com - Thursday, 6th November 2008