Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1493026
maltatoday | SUNDAY • 19 FEBRUARY 2023 OPINION 10 OPINION Trust is a lot easier to demolish, than to build… YOU can tell something is seriously rot- ten in the state of Malta's planning sector, when the Prime Minister appoints a new chairman of the Building and Construc- tion Authority – to replace the outgoing one: who resigned in disgrace last Tues- day – and the entire country heaves a huge sigh of relief… because the new ap- pointee turns out to NOT actually have any glaring 'conflicts of interest', for a change. Or at least, none that show up on his curriculum vitae, so far. And to be fair to Saviour Camilleri: it is rather unlike- ly that any ever will, either. He is, after all, a 'retired draughtsman'; and as such – unlike his immediate predecessor, Maria Schembri Grima – there isn't much chance that he'll also be directly 'on the payroll', of the same develop- ment industry that he is now supposed to 'regulate'. So, what can I say? That's one small step for Mr Camilleri himself… and who knows? Possibly, one giant step forward for the credibility of Malta's Planning Sector as a whole, too… … if, at least, the new BCA chairman actually lives up to the rest of the (no pressure, or anything) ENORMOUS re- sponsibility, that has now been thrust upon his shoulders: a responsibility that – for the record – also includes 'restor- ing public trust, in a planning system that has very clearly FAILED.' Now THAT, I fear, is something that may lie far beyond the physical capabili- ties of any 'new chairman of the BCA': no matter how 'honest', 'well-intentioned', or 'unsaddled-by-conflicts-of-interest', they may happen to be… But hey, let's not run too far ahead of ourselves. It remains, like I said, a 'small step in the right direction'; so let's take things one step at a time. And the first step that I have (very ar- bitrarily) chosen to start with, for the purposes of this article, concerns the actual circumstances under which Ma- ria Schembri Grima even had to be re- placed, at all. (Because it seems to me that, judging by Robert Abela's own comments to the press: he himself is not altogether sure of those circumstances, either…) Among other things, we are told that [my emphasis, as usual]: "Speaking on Friday, the prime minister admitted that Schembri Grima's role HAD BE- COME untenable, AFTER what hap- pened' …" And, well, already you can see that Robert Abela is 'confused' enough, to get his grammatical tenses all muddled up. For instance: 'had become' is a text- book example of the 'Past Perfect Tense' – which, as any English Language Pro- ficiency teacher would happily spend hours informing you (believe it or not, I was one myself for years) – presup- poses the existence of an 'anterior past', preceding the events currently being described in the same sentence. In other words: to argue that Schem- bri's role suddenly became 'untenable', only AFTER 'what happened' – and I'll come back to 'what that was', in just a second – is also to imply the existence an 'anterior past' (i.e., BEFORE 'what happened, happened'), in which her role as BCA chairman must have ac- tually been… well, perfectly 'tenable', I suppose. And coming, as it does, from the same Prime Minister who appointed both Saviour Camilleri AND Maria Schembri Grech, to this ultra-sensitive role: this grammatical slip-up also suggests that Robert Abela himself still doesn't really understand… well, two things, really: One, 'what a conflict of interest even is, to begin with'… For let's face it, folks: what Abela is re- ally telling us there, is that he himself saw nothing whatsoever wrong, in 2021, with "appointing a private architect – routinely engaged by major developers such as Joseph Portelli, Michael Stivala, et al – to regulate the entire construc- tion sector: without even having to re- linquish her private career." Which, in turn, also suggests that – in a parallel universe, anyway: where 'what happened', never actually happened at all – Robert Abela would still be see- ing 'absolutely nothing wrong' with the same situation, right down to this very moment. In fact – going on his own record – he would probably still be de- fending Maria Schembri Grech, tooth and nail, to this very day: just as he ear- lier did with a few other of his 'contro- versial' public appointees (including the last two prison directors, on the trot). As for the second thing Robert Abela is clearly confused about: evidently, he still doesn't see – no matter how pain- fully visible it might be, to everybody else – the existence of a direct, causal link, between 'what happened'… and the same 'conflict of interest' that AL- LOWED it to happen, in the first place (and for which Maria Schembri Grech should obviously never have been ap- pointed to that role, at all). And so – with the noble aim of helping the Prime Minister 'brush up his gram- mar a little', please note – I feel com- pelled to iron out the precise chronol- ogy of these events, for his benefit and instruction. Let's begin with the obvious question: what actually 'happened', anyway, to even warrant Schembri Grech's resigna- tion at all? Well, it started with a dem- olition project (by Joseph Portelli; who subcontracted Charles Polidano for the actual demolition works) to redevelop the old Go Exchange building in Birkir- kara… and it ended with a 'stop-notice' order, hurriedly issued by the BCA last week: after great chunks of debris sub- sided from the site, and crashed down onto the adjacent roads (causing, I need hardly add, serious potential danger to residents, pedestrians, motorists, etc.) Now: in case you were still wonder- ing where Schembri Grech actually fits, into all that… well, she was both the chairman of the Building Construction Authority, AND also the architect of the self-same Birkirkara project, at one at the same time. Already, then, we are beset with some- thing of a 'chicken-and-egg' situation. Did Maria Schembri Grech really re- sign, because a development project she herself had (even partly) designed, hap- pened to 'collapse' the way it did? Or was it the other way round: i.e., that the accident itself occurred, precisely BE- CAUSE the project's architect also hap- pened to occupy the role of 'construc- tion industry regulator' (resulting in, shall we say, the occasional 'blind eye' being turned, here and there, towards certain infringements in the 'health and safety' department)? Hmm. I guess we'll just never know now, will we? But then, I wouldn't want to speculate too much, either: even be- cause, at the end of the day, it doesn't really matter all that much, whether it was the 'chicken' or 'egg' that actually 'came first'. The simple fact remains that this con- flict of interest has been glaringly obvi-