Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1130632
17 maltatoday | SUNDAY • 16 JUNE 2019 INTERVIEW had been signed between MDA and the ministers, to start draw- ing up this scheme. When it can easily be photocopied from the one in place in the UK. So basi- cally, we had this whole ceremo- ny for… bullshit. Nothing. They hadn't done their homework. And they announced that they were 'going to start doing their homework'. It's like a student asking the Dean of his Faculty to 'announce' that he's going to start writing his dissertation... Meanwhile, the Prime Minister has issued an immediate halt to ongoing excavation works: which in itself is an extraordinary measure, suggesting that radical intervention is now the only response. Yet the construction itself is also government's official policy: 'Economic growth cannot be stopped'. Stopping it would shock the economy. Would you agree that we, therefore, are on a collision course with disaster? Yes. It is blatantly clear that both this government, and the one before it thought that 'end- less growth' was the path to success. The only thing that has 'endless, exponential growth' is the cancer-cell. If we want to forge ahead with that kind of model in mind, we can all die of it, basically. It is ironic, that a government that is touted as so 'progressive' and 'forward- thinking', is actually very, very old-fashioned. This is 'scorched- earth' thinking: we are ruining everything. It is terribly, terribly old-fashioned. I can't under- stand why they can't see it. But it is not in the government's mind- set. I have even had, a few years ago, a government minister tell- ing me: 'Listen, when we do the surveys, it shows up that the en- vironment isn't high on the peo- ple's list of priorities.' But this has changed. Of course, there are other ways of doing things. But the government is not re- ally being 'progressive'. It's going off on all these tangents: space, robots, whatever… and it's not even taking care of our territory, and our people. Now, people are realising that it had to get really bad… but really bad… till the vis- ible, tangible effects of all these multiple, deliberate decisions by the government were felt. The next thing people will be feeling is the effect of traffic congestion and emissions. Because no mat- ter what [Traffic Minister] Ian Borg says, and how many roads he widens: the more you widen roads, the more you increase traffic congestion. In fact, I have just unearthed a presentation made by Transport Malta, were they themselves recognised the fact that if you widen roads, you will get more congestion and more emissions. So even here, government is purposely going against the stated objectives of the transport strategy plan. And they don't care about anything else: alternative modes of trans- port, etc. Ironically, after all that talk about the power station be- ing a 'cancer factory', now we have little cancer factories eve- rywhere… On the subject of 'drastic things needed to happen, for people to see the problem'… do you think these recent collapses may prove a turning point in public perceptions to these issues? One of the things I found… I don't know, 'poignant? 'mov- ing'?... is that, in the photos of one of the apartment blocks, when you look at the exposed walls of the apartments, there was a poster of Dom Mintoff – 'Is-Salvatur' – and next to him, Joseph Muscat: who is arguably the greatest leader Labour has ever had, with his huge major- ity, with his international stand- ing, etc. Yet, despite this... the laws that this great leader has put into place, are not enough to protect his own supporters. The people who love him the most. I found that sad. Questions have meanwhile been raised about the legality of his intervention. Some have compared it to 'Putin- style politics'. From a legal perspective… is government arrogating unto itself powers that should really be wielded by independent authorities? We have seen a shift from the first accident in Gwardamanga, when the Prime Minister said: 'Don't let this accident charac- terise the whole construction industry.' Which I thought was really not on. You're either wait- ing to see the results of the in- vestigations; or else you're just excusing them. But anyway. There has been a shift to 'all- out action' since then. We are now realising that it's going to be a constant, recurring prob- lem. We saw the 'war-room' at Castille, we saw everybody on their phones… we saw the ac- tion being taken. It was a bit of an overkill, really. Like the movie 'Independence Day'. You expected Will Smith to charge out from under the table… but this action was taken under the guise of a legal notice, of which Section 18.2 states [read- ing]: 'where the director of the Building Regulation Office […] deems that the cessation of construction activity is immedi- ate, because of imminent severe damage to contiguous proper- ties, or danger to the public, or third parties, the enforcement notice and required preventive measures may be issued, on site, in a verbal manner, and later confirmed in writing within 24 hours of issuance.' So the Prime Minister came out with it under the 'remit' of the director of the BRO. However: politically, and for the mental well-being of everyone around, who is petri- fied that everything's going to come crashing down around them… it may well have been a good move; a popular move. But come on… this is bloody ri- diculous. This section of the law is meant for individual cases. Unless there's an earthquake, or something of that magnitude, you can't all of a sudden extend that legal notice to every prop- erty in Malta… Well, you said it yourself: we were promised an 'earthquake of change', and now we have an emergency situation… But is it an emergency situ- ation everywhere? Across the entire country? I am not one to fight for the rights of devel- opers, far from it; but imagine a case where a developer who abides by the rules, and has pen- alties attached to not competing the project within a fixed num- ber of days. Then he has to stop, because the cowboy down the road accidentally demolished a building. And by prime min- isterial decree, too. It is mad- ness. I don't want to overstretch it, or turn into a controversy… but what are these weird, all- encompassing diktats, anyway? To me, they're an acknowledge- ment that the institutions are useless. Hopeless. Powerless. So we have to keep going to Cas- tille, to convene that big war room, every time… That raises the question of what else could be done in the circumstances… I don't deny it was a popu- lar move, or that something had to be done. But popular moves are not the answer. We need to resource the authori- ties – the white paper for it was published last September. Nine months later, nothing has hap- pened. Now, we're going to have regulations drafted over the weekend, followed by five days of consultation. It's a farce. The citizen has no power in this country. The government is not really being 'progressive'. It's going off on all these tangents: space, robots, whatever… and it's not even taking care of our territory, and our people