4 comments so far.Update – BirdLife slams decision to make Gozo Minister responsible for hunting
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Update with statement from PN and Minister below: BirdLife Malta has said that the Prime Minister’s decision to place the hunting regulator under the Gozo Ministry is “diabolical,” and condemned the decision as a “purely electoral one.”
BirdLife Malta CEO Mark Sultana said, “the decision to transfer the Wild Birds Regulation Unit (WBRU) – that serves as the regulator on hunting and trapping in Malta – to the Ministry of Gozo under Minister Clint Camilleri, himself a hunter and trapper, is a diabolical move which sends the wrong message. The only consideration here is purely electoral.”
He added that, “as Malta’s largest environmental NGO, BirdLife Malta would have hoped that the Prime Minister responds to the environmental concerns and shifts responsibility of hunting and trapping to a ministry which embraces the environment, and not the hunting and trapping lobby.”
He went on to remind the Prime Minister that “Malta faces Infringement Proceedings on an EU level on the decision to open trapping for songbirds and for its insistence to allow trapping for other species.”
Birdlife Malta said that it hopes that the Prime Minister is “fully aware of the subjective decision-making process in the WBRU and the overwhelming presence of hunters and trappers in the unit.”
It concluded by urging the Prime Minister to reconsider this decision and place the WBRU within a Ministry that “reflects the aspirations of a nation that considers environment as a priority.”
Update: Clandestine behaviour by Prime Minister Robert Abela
In a statement the Nationalist Party, through Jason Azzopardi, the Opposition Spokesman on the Environment, Maritime Affairs and Green Initiatives, has accused Prime Minister Abela of “clandestine behaviour” when it became known that Ministerial responsibility of enforcement on Environmental Laws in relation to hunting and trapping were being “hidden within the Ministerial responsibility of the Minister for Gozo.”
Dr Azzopardi said that, “this is not right and it makes neither sense nor justice, that the matter is entrusted to the Minister who has a vested interest as a hunter himself to see that such enforcement is not carried out.”
Minister Camilleri
Minister Clint Camilleri speaking speaking in Parliament today, said that he will, as in the last year, continue shouldering the responsibility for the sector and that Labour had never “betrayed” the hunting lobby.
A very sinister, scary decision. What a pity birds can’t vote or shoot!
This could only happen in somewhere as corrupt as Malta! Clint Camilleri should never have been made Gozo Minister for the simple reason he’s a waste of space. I personally wouldn’t employ him to clean toilets! Justyne Caruana was the best Minister Gozo ever had and worked tirelessly for the good of the island. I can assure you Clint will never do a fraction of the work she did. He prefers to get others to do the work for him and then step in at the last minute to claim all the glory. To also make him responsible for the Wild Birds Regulation Unit is a joke. The only interest he has in wild birds is blasting them out of the sky and supporting those who do likewise. If these are the sort of decisions that Robert Abela is going to make as Prime Minister then he’s unfit for purpose!
Fox in the hen house
It’s the same old story yet again. Votes and Cronyism. The Labour Party are a corrupt disgrace.