Gozo minister denies Comino master plan ever existed, despite evidence

Gozo Minister Clint Camilleri has refused a Freedom of Information request to provide the 2018 master plan for Comino, which his ministry commissioned but never implemented.

The Shift asked for a copy of the master plan drawn up in 2018 but never published. Yet it seems the minister cannot find it.

The minister insisted, “The Ministry for Gozo and Planning has not procured a Master Plan for Comino from Architect Frank Muscat.”

Yet the existence of this master plan was repeatedly confirmed in parliament, even by Clint Camilleri himself, in various parliamentary questions.

The Shift is legally challenging the minister’s answer.

A never-ending Comino saga

In 2018, amid criticism of how the government had abandoned Comino, then-Gozo Minister Justyne Caruana commissioned Architect Frank Muscat of Doric Studio to draw up a master plan for the island. At the time, Muscat was the minister’s favourite architect, awarded several direct orders.

The 2018 master plan is not the only one the government has kept on the shelf while allowing a free-for-all on the island, a designated Natura 2000 site.

In 2022, after Moviment Graffiti protested the government’s granting of abusive deckchair concessions, Tourism Minister Clayton Bartolo announced a new “holistic plan” for Comino, which had to be implemented in the summer of 2023.

The latest ‘plan’, unnecessary as the 2018 master plan was already there, is still a work in progress as it hasn’t been finalised yet.

As a result of this ‘delay,’ Clayton Bartolo, through the Malta Tourism Authority, has renewed the current abusive deckchair concessions through direct order contrary to procurement rules.

Bartolo has a direct interest in leaving the status quo on Comino, as his father is involved in a company – Oh Yeah Malta – that ferries hundreds of tourists daily to the island, increasing its oversaturation but generating more ‘business’.

For his part, Minister Camilleri’s primary focus on Comino was the creation of a new asphalted road so that illegal kiosks owned by his canvassers could carry out their business, generating hundreds of thousands in sales each summer.

In the meantime, the implementation of the 2018 master plan and Bartolo’s holistic plan is yet to be completed.