Comino kiosks tendered from 2026

TL;DR

On 14 April 2025 the Minister for Tourism, Ian Borg, told The Shift that Comino’s kiosks and beach concessions would stay as they were for the 2025 season, adding: “However, starting in the summer of 2026, everyone will have to compete and pay the right price.” [1] On 8 February 2026 the Malta Tourism Authority (MTA) told the same outlet that no competitive tenders would be issued that summer: “this will have to wait until we have the permit” [2]. We checked whether the promise was kept.

1. The promise had a date and a scope. “Starting in the summer of 2026”, “everyone” (the kiosk and beach-concession operators on Comino) would compete in a tender [1]. That is measurable.
2. The MTA itself said it would not happen. Four months before the season, an MTA spokesperson said no competitive tenders for kiosks or beach concessions would be issued in summer 2026, because the MTA’s planning application (PA00738/26) was not yet approved [2].
3. Nothing we could find shows a change since. The Shift’s report of 24 June 2026 describes the same ad hoc extensions [3]; we found no tender notice for the kiosks (search log in the literature notes). Summer ended 42 days before this check.
4. The number of kiosks cannot be tested. The Minister gave “around 11” in March 2025 and the MTA still speaks of reducing them “radically” [4, 2]; we found no later count.
5. Pledge label: Missed (moderate confidence). The deadline passed and the MTA’s own statement and a later report show the tender did not take place. The evidence is outlets’ quotations of the MTA, not an MTA document.

1. Not measurable
2. Not yet due
3. On track
4. Off track
5. Met
6. Missed

IN THIS REPORT

1 The claim and what we could verify

Our record came from a Lovin Malta report of 3 March 2025 [4], which states, in its headline, that the Minister pledges a revamp of Comino’s kiosks, and from a record paraphrase: “from 2026 all Comino kiosks and encroached public spaces will be awarded through competitive tenders and their number reduced”. That sentence is the intake’s paraphrase, not the speaker’s wording. We therefore rate the Minister’s own words, quoted in The Shift on 14 April 2025 [1], and treat the rest as context.

What we rate. One pledge: that from summer 2026 the Comino operators would compete for their concessions in a tender. “Everyone” and “the right price” point to the kiosks and beach concessions the article was about. Reducing the number of kiosks is not in the Minister’s quoted words as a commitment, so it is context and not rated.

2 Method

Question. Did Comino’s kiosks and beach concessions go to competitive tender from summer 2026, as the Minister said they would?

Evidence. Two outlets’ reports of the Minister’s words [1, 4]; the MTA’s own statement of 8 February 2026, quoted by The Shift [2]; The Shift’s reports of 28 February 2025 and 24 June 2026 [5, 3]; the MTA’s Blue Lagoon Strategic Plan page [6], which names summer 2026 as the date for completing the transformation. We looked for a tender notice in web searches and a tender aggregator’s listings of MTA procurement for Comino (search log in literature/CC-086/notes.md). The dates are transcribed in data/cc-086/statements.csv and the date arithmetic recomputed by tools/cc-086-report/calc.py into checks.csv.

Literature. We searched Crossref and OpenAlex for peer-reviewed studies of kiosk or concession tendering on Mediterranean protected islands and found none to rely on. The general economics of franchise bidding (Williamson 1976 [7]) concerns whether competition for a concession can replace regulation; it does not bear on whether this tender took place, so we use it only as background. Grades: statements quoted in outlets are grade D (assertion) for what will happen and grade C for what an authority said it had decided; Appendix A.

3 What the record shows

Figure 1. Statements about Comino’s kiosks, 2025–2026. Sources [1–5]; dates in data/cc-086/statements.csv.

2025. The Minister said in March 2025 that the MTA gave about 11 annual kiosk concessions and that this “might be too many” [4]. In April 2025 he said it was too late for a tender that year and that “starting in the summer of 2026, everyone will have to compete and pay the right price” [1]. The Shift reported that the MTA was considering limiting the number of kiosks (outlet’s paraphrase) [1].

February 2026. An MTA spokesperson told The Shift: “The intention remains to reduce kiosks radically and to issue beach concessions through a competitive tendering process. However, this will have to wait until we have the permit.” The outlet reports the MTA as confirming that no competitive tenders for kiosks or beach concessions would be issued that summer, and that the MTA’s planning application PA00738/26, filed in 2025, was at an early stage with no timeline (its paraphrase; we did not open the Planning Authority’s record, which is browser-only) [2].

June 2026. The Shift reported on 24 June that the kiosks have lacked valid Planning Authority permits since at least 2015 and that beach concessions continued through ad hoc arrangements extended annually [3]. It reported no tender. We found, in the places listed in the notes, no kiosk or beach-concession tender notice between February and 12 October 2026; this is a search result, not proof of absence (Section 7). MTA procurement for Comino that we did find concerned security, cleaning and visitor wristbands [8].

4 Where the evidence points different ways

5 Testing the claim

6 Pledge label and requests for evidence

Why. (1) The pledge is measurable: a competitive tender for the kiosks and beach concessions, from summer 2026. (2) Its date has passed: summer ended on 31 August (42 days before this check), or on 30 September on the most generous reading (12 days). (3) The MTA said in February that no tender would be issued that summer and gave a reason; The Shift’s June report shows the same arrangements; we found no tender notice. Under the scale, Missed needs a passed deadline and documents or data that can be shown: these are the MTA’s statement and the reports listed in the evidence box, which we read in full. (4) Confidence is moderate because the evidence is outlets’ quotation of the MTA, not an MTA document, and our search of tender notices was not exhaustive.

What this does not say. It does not say the planning permit delay was avoidable, nor that the policy of tendering is right or wrong, nor anything about an operator.

Evidence we are asking for

• Malta Tourism Authority: whether any tender or call for the Comino kiosks and beach concessions was published for 2026, with its date and result.
• Malta Tourism Authority: the number of kiosk concessions in 2025 and 2026, and the status of application PA00738/26.
• Ministry for Tourism: the text of the press statement of February 2025 on competitive tenders from 2026, which we could not find in a readable outlet.

7 Limitations

• gov.mt, mta.com.mt news pages and the Planning Authority’s site are browser-only for scripts, and the Wayback Machine reset connections; the Ministry’s press statement of February 2025 and the MTA’s tender page were not read. The MTA’s February 2026 words are as The Shift printed them.
• We found no tender notice, but searches of the web and of a tender aggregator are not a search of the government’s eTenders portal; an award we did not find would move the label.
• “The summer of 2026” is not defined by the Minister; we show the 31 August and 30 September readings.
• The Strategic Plan page [6] is undated; we use it only to show that the MTA itself named summer 2026.

References

1. [1] Camilleri, I. (14 Apr 2025). Illegal kiosks on protected Comino to be allowed another year, despite promises. The Shift. Read in full 12 Oct 2026. https://theshiftnews.com/2025/04/14/illegal-kiosks-on-protected-comino-to-be-allowed-another-year-despite-promises
2. [2] Camilleri, I. (8 Feb 2026). Broken promise as Comino illegal concessions to stay put for another summer. The Shift. Read in full 12 Oct 2026. https://theshiftnews.com/2026/02/08/broken-promise-as-comino-illegal-concessions-to-stay-put-for-another-summer/
3. [3] The Shift (24 Jun 2026). Visit Malta officials filmed telling citizens to leave deckchair-occupied beach in Comino. Read 12 Oct 2026. https://theshiftnews.com/2026/06/24/visit-malta-officials-filmed-telling-citizens-to-leave-deckchair-occupied-beach-in-comino/
4. [4] Lovin Malta (3 Mar 2025). Watch: No More Vans? Ian Borg Pledges Major Comino Kiosk Revamp. Read 12 Oct 2026. https://lovinmalta.com/news/watch-no-more-vans-ian-borg-pledges-major-comino-kiosk-revamp/
5. [5] Camilleri, I. (28 Feb 2025). Yet another promise to address Comino concession problems. The Shift. Read 12 Oct 2026. https://theshiftnews.com/2025/02/28/yet-another-promise-to-address-comino-concession-problems/
6. [6] Malta Tourism Authority (undated; © 2026). Blue Lagoon Strategic Plan. Read 12 Oct 2026. https://mta.com.mt/blue-lagoon-strategic-plan/
7. [7] Williamson, O. E. (1976). Franchise Bidding for Natural Monopolies – in General and with Respect to CATV. The Bell Journal of Economics 7(1):73. doi:10.2307/3003191. Abstract read; background only. https://doi.org/10.2307/3003191
8. [8] ◆ Tender aggregator listings of MTA procurement for Comino (CT2029/2026 security; wristbands SPD2/2026/009 and /024), seen in a search summary 12 Oct 2026; not opened.
9. [9] Miżien. Data and calculations: data/cc-086/; tools/cc-086-report/calc.py (checks.csv).

Appendix A: series standards and verdict scale

Every investigation in this series follows the same rules so that verdicts are comparable and challengeable.

Pledge labels

A pledge is a promise of future action, so it cannot be true or false when it is made. It gets one of these labels instead of a verdict, with the date of the evidence behind it.

Confidence

High: multiple independent lines of evidence agree. Moderate: evidence is relevant but incomplete or indirect. Low: evidence is thin, second-hand or conflicting.

Evidence grades

A experiment · B observational study with a control or gradient · C review, guidance or official statistics · D assertion or anecdote. ◆ marks a source known only second-hand (used for context only, never for a deciding figure).

Standards

• Quote the speaker, not the headline, with outlet and date, and link the original where possible.
• Separate the claim from the evidence offered for it, and say who made which statement.
• Grade the evidence and show differing views side by side where the evidence is unsettled.
• State what we could not access or verify, and what would change the verdict either way.
• Ask for the missing evidence in specific, answerable requests.
• Offer a right of reply where a check finds a claim Not substantiated, Misleading or Contradicted (or a pledge Not measurable, Off track or Missed), before wider circulation, and append responses.
• Correct errors openly with a version number and change log.
• Whistle-blow only on evidence: a verdict of Misleading or Contradicted requires documents or data that can be shown, not inference.
• Check every side. Government, opposition, NGOs and developers are held to the same standard.

Appendix B: revision log