A cheap media stunt by camera-prone Minister Miriam Dalli, intended to capitalise on a minuscule project inside a housing estate in Attard, backfired as many residents and people familiar with the area ridiculed her attempt, describing it as blatant propaganda aimed at impressing the gullible.
Last week, Dalli hit the national TV headlines, particularly on the state broadcaster PBS and Labour’s ONE, announcing that she had inaugurated a new garden and “green space” for some 7,000 Attard residents living next to the housing estate.
However, her attempt to give the wrong impression soon fell apart, as the so-called ‘garden’, turned out to be nothing more than the refurbishment of a small pavement roughly the size of a nearby house’s driveway. To make matters worse, the pavement-garden had already existed for decades, with the only changes being a minor refurbishment and the installation of a pergola.
As soon as the ‘big news’ reached TV screens, social media was inundated with comments ridiculing the minister’s stunt.
Many challenged her to provide details on the actual size of the “pavement” she had just inaugurated, while others mocked her by asking for GPS coordinates in case visitors sarcastically got lost in the “huge” park.
Others took the opportunity to take a dig at former ONE TV chairman, now responsible for the nearby Ta’ Qali Park, insisting that Dalli should have asked Jason Micallef to accompany her during her address on state TV.
Some of the online comments generated by Miriam Dalli’s latest stunt
This latest ‘inauguration’ forms part of Dalli’s efforts to inflate her government’s commitment to the creation of new green spaces – an exercise in greenwashing that has so far failed to impress.
Through the creation of Project Green, a new government vehicle supposedly tasked with delivering a €700 million greening of the island, few projects have been concluded, with little or no tangible impact.
To make matters worse, the ‘parks’ being inaugurated by Miriam Dalli are often less than the size of a five-a-side football pitch and, in some cases, such as ‘Ġnien il-Fuklar’ in Attard, no larger than a pavement.
At the same time, public funds continue to be dished out to friends and canvassers through direct orders, contracts, and media stunts.
According to recent parliamentary questions by MP Rebekah Borg, the agency led by disgraced former MFSA CEO Joseph Cuschieri, a close friend of Dalli, has spent almost €700,000 on events and marketing to promote Project Green initiatives over the past three years.
Most procurement has been carried out through direct orders.
Among them is a €350,000 contract awarded to XYZ Architects, co-owned by Labour’s former deputy leader Daniel Micallef, and another contract worth more than €1 million awarded to architect Edwin Mintoff for a new garden and car park project in Bormla that was meant to be completed two years ago.
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