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MALTATODAY 25 September 2022

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6 maltatoday | SUNDAY • 27 MARCH 2022 OPINION 2 maltatoday EXECUTIVE EDITOR Matthew Vella mvella@mediatoday.com.mt Letters to the Editor, MaltaToday, Vjal ir-Rihan, San Gwann SGN 9016 E-mail: dailynews@mediatoday.com.mt Letters must be concise, no pen names accepted, include full name and address maltatoday | SUNDAY • 25 SEPTEMBER 2022 Full up, fed up... of tourism? Editorial THIS week, the Deloitte-MHRA report gave the Maltese a snapshot of the availability of hotel-accom- modation, should all the approved or pending appli- cations for new hotels come on board. As MHRA boss Tony Zahra explains, assuming that all the pending applications will be approved, Malta would have dou- bled the number of rooms it had in 2019, when the island clocked just over 80% occupancy of the rooms available at the time. In short, the full complement of tourists these hotels can accommodate is close to 5 million tourists. It is a brutal scenario to consider. Only this week, the home affairs minister was sending 'cleansing department' officers to clear out illegal structures inside the geographic areas of Marsa and Hamrun, in tandem with a police action to remove overstay- ers – namely asylum seekers from Italy – in a show of force against 'illegal' non-EU nationals from Af- rica. Yet, Malta's planning authority is given carte blanche, thanks to Labour's expansionist planning policies, to add more storeys to high-rise hotels, and add brand new hotels to the mix for millions of tourists. It is open season for unabashed construction wealth and paying tourists, while a silent war is waged against the dispossessed who suffer the con- sequences of street brawl in Hamrun that went viral (the home affairs minister seems unable to consider better policing on our streets as a solution to an- ti-social behaviour...). But back to the Deloitte report, for the report identified the real pitfalls of this formula of un- fettered economic growth 'at all costs': overdevel- opment; the overcrowding of sensitive sites, the impact on utilities such as energy-provision, and sewage. Malta cannot cope with today's tourism figures – still less with the 4.7 million it would need to cater for the insatiable thirst of the hotel and construc- tion industry seeking planning permits. The MHRA says this report is mapping out a clear picture of the future for Malta. It is time that the government takes heed – to take the political decisions it feels it has to take. But does the government have the necessary courage to redefine its formula for growth? In 2019, Moviment Graffitti's successful national protest against "excessive and haphazard construction" – under the rallying cry, 'Iż-żejjed kollu żejjed' ('Enough is enough') – was already a reminder that economic growth cannot take precedence over peo- ple's right to live in safety; and that it cannot ride roughshod over people's genuine concerns abut their environment, their health and their quality of life. We already knew that even government's own consultants have warned that widening roads will only result in more traffic congestion further down the line. Yet government persists regardless: raising legitimate questions on why it disregards its own commissioned advice, to favour one particular in- dustry above all else. And the similar pattern appears in other areas: the rate at which the Planning Authority approves new projects, or turns a blind eye at existing plan- ning breaches, strongly suggests that the motives are always entirely economic than environmental. Limiting growth is not a defeatist position, but a radical choice to attain sustainability. Indeed the Deloitte report does delve into the possibility that the population, in Malta, will reach a point where numbers may start negatively affecting the attitudes of residents towards tourists, similar to what has happened in Barcelona or Venice. Indeed, there are no doubts that this has started to happen in Malta already. Take Sliema, where a transient population of foreign workers and tourists and short-let stayers, treat the town as a personal rubbish bin; where the lack of policing on the beat means that people with no ties to the community are found committing acts of random vandalism; and where constant construction and soaring prop- erty prices are pricing out native-born residents from the town. This is why unfeasible projects such as those of a tunnel from Malta to Gozo betrays a lack of con- sistency which even Labour ministers are aware of, yet they are unable to pronounce themselves against the tunnel project which they abhor. It is clear that the addiction to real estate projects is so ingrained, that the government is unwilling to pull the plug. In reality there is no hope to save what is left of our Malta, if those in power remain enslaved to an economic model which depends on the multiplier effect of construction and the sale of apartments to rich foreigners, in this case, subsi- dized by the cheap availability of public land dished out by a compliant government. 25 September 2012 Lost in translation: why foreign inmates are often trapped in legal limbo Malta's legal landscape contains what ap- pears to be an inbuilt penchant for discrimi- nating against foreigners in general. An abortive hunger strike at Corradino prison, in protest against unreasonable delays in an ongoing criminal appeal case, has cast a spotlight on a situation whereby foreign in- mates are often left to languish in prison with no idea of their individual rights, or even of the precise details of their own cases. Jose Edgar Pena – a Canadian national of Mexican extraction, currently serving an 18-year sentence for conspiracy to drug traf- ficking – started refusing food in his cell in Division 11 on Wednesday 12 September... soon after learning that the date for his ap- peal hearing had been deferred for the fifth consecutive time, without any explanation provided by the court. It transpired that Pena had earlier spent four years awaiting trial in preventative custody. Arrested in August 2006, his case would be heard and decided in 2010: when he was convicted by six votes to three in a trial by jury. The interim period was spent behind bars, in clear breach of an article of law (Chapter 9, Section 575 of the Criminal Code) stating that bail should be automati- cally awarded after 20 months' incarceration, in cases where the maximum penalty is more than nine years. But while his rights were clearly infringed (having been incarcerated than the double the maximum time permitted by law) it ap- pears that there is no immediate legal redress available. In response to questions by this newspaper, a spokesperson for the law courts gave a de- tailed breakdown of the deferrals in question: "The appeal case of Mr Pena was heard on 12 July 2011, and had been deferred for judg- ment 'in difetto ostacolo' for 15 September 2011," Dr Kevin Mahoney, director of law- courts, explained. "From that date, the case was deferred for judgment for 27 October 2011, 12 January 2012, 23 April 2012 and 16 May 2012. Judg- ment is due to be delivered on the 15 No- vember 2012." ... Quote of the Week "While we are right to insist that we should not and cannot carry a burden that far outweighs our resources, this cannot be justified to turn a deaf ear and harden our hearts when we hear a desperate cry for help" Archbishop Charles Scicluna in his homily during mass celebrated to mark Independence Day MaltaToday 10 years ago

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