Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/712521
maltatoday, SUNDAY, 7 AUGUST 2016 24 Opinion Status quo at Lands is a no-go P rogress is impossible without change, and those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything... George Bernard Shaw could indeed have said something like this of today's Opposition. Not only are they not in the business of changing their ways, but neither are they anywhere close to bring about progress or at least try to. The history of the Government Property Department has been riddled with problems of various kinds, the nature of which has often been the subject of controversy and favourite topics with journalists. Altough this sorry state of affairs has persisted throughout the years next to nothing was done by the previous administration to alleviate the problems or indeed to prevent them from happening. The situation has actually progressively degenerated, making the Lands Department one of the worst governed entities within government itself. We have heard people complain of delays, from simple acknowledgements to registrations of plots of lands, schemes that have started more than a decade ago and are still 'works in progress', complaints about promises of sale agreements that have never materialised into contracts, to scandals, malpractice, bad governance and a genaral feeling of malaise. This government has had the courage to not only admit the extent of the problem but to promulgate a piece of legislation which will ensure a radical, conceptual change in the way the Lands Department is managed, public land is administered and the general public is served. The Lands Authority Act which was passed through Parlaiment before the summer recess is a collage of best practice and standards found in a number of other legislations that created various authorities throughout the years. It provides a series of checks and balances, transparency, accountability and efficiency which will elevate the Lands Department from its sorry state of affairs to an Authority which will be a leader in its field. It is shocking how the Opposition is dealing with the matter, on the one hand it exasperates us all with negative criticism, offering no alternatives, and whilst crying foul of the status quo it does absolutely nothing to change it. For this government the status quo is a no-go. For the Opposition, on the other hand, the status quo is what it voted for when it voted against the Lands Authority Act in Parliament just days ago. Whilst on the one hand criticising the government for keeping its hold on the new authority, it criticised the introduction of a member of the Opposition on the Board of Governors. Whilst asking for more scrutiny it criticised a new layer of scrutiny provided for by the Chief Audit Office, which acts independently of any other watchdog such as the Auditor General, the Commissioner against Corruption, the Commissioner of Police and the Ombudsman. The mind boggles! What is the Opposition exactly criticising and what is it exactly after? One wonders... is it so terribly confused on what it wants or is it totally baffled by this piece of legislative effort to rid the Lands Department once and for all of its lack of transparency and aura of wrongdoing. When specifically asked to contribute to drafting amendments to the bill prior to its being presented in Parliament the Opposition never mentioned one single, solitary comment with the aim of bettering the presented draft. This goes to show how whilst trying its best to denigrate anything that the government does it does not have a clue on what to do if it were governing in its stead. The nitty gritty details are sometimes too technical to make for a pleasant Sunday read, however the aim of the new legislation is to eliminate the politician from the equation when it comes to devolution of public land, which has been left in the hands of a Board of Governors. And if there is one person who encapsulates the government's will to make a big difference in how the new authority will function, it's the Chief Audit Officer, who will scrutinise the dealings of the authority and report to both administration and to parliament, without any fear of being removed from office since he can only be removed in specific instances by a majority in parliament. There is still a great deal of work to be done of course, the Lands reform has various phases that are being tackled in parallel with the implementation of the legislation. Work is being done on the consolidation of various laws, digitisation, new methods for valuation of property, map layering and so forth, however the Lands Authority Act has kickstarted the reform with a bang. What we intend doing is keeping up the momentum until the effects of the reform will be felt by one and all. Deborah Schembri is Parliamentary Secretary for Planning Deborah Schembri There is still a great deal of work to be done, the Lands reform has various phases The history of the Government Property Department has been riddled with problems of various kinds T rying to find consistency in a Maltese political party is a bit like trying to find the Loch Ness Monster. Let's face it: we all 'want' Nessie to exist; we all have this romantic notion that remote Scottish lochs 'should ' conceal undiscovered living fossils from a bygone era… and we can all even appreciate how such beliefs come into being in the first place. It's a lake… we don't know what's in it… so… MONSTER! By the same token (and with much the same misplaced optimism) we all 'want' our governments to be consistent; we all feel that there 'should ' be a clear and unwavering policy approach to issues as sensitive as 'planning' and the 'environment' (arguably the two most crucial considerations, in a country roughly the size of a walnut)… But when it comes to the crunch, you may as well believe in the existence of a dinosaur that somehow survived mass extinction 65 million years ago, and continued happily living in a small Scottish lake that was only formed in the last few hundred thousand years. Both scenarios are clearly impossible; yet there is room to argue that 'consistency in a Maltese political party' is actually the less likely of the two. The problem with the cryptid supposedly inhabiting Loch Ness is that its existence is hugely implausible, for a host of biological reasons that are too complicated to go into here. But there is no concrete 'evidence' that Nessie doesn't exist. In fact, there can't be: evidence, by its very nature, can never be used to demonstrate the non- existence of anything. The case against political consistency, by way of contrast, is pretty clear-cut. What happened this week is perhaps the best example I have seen of this phenomenon in the last 25 years; but in all that time, political parties have done nothing but contradict themselves in the most blatant and glaring way imaginable. Unlike cryptozoology, 'political inconsistency' is not a fanciful conspiracy theory… it is an observable, quantifiable and indisputable fact. Consider the following: Glenn Bedingfield – who is a spokesman for the Office of the Prime Minister, from where he administers his blog – recently came out with a blogpost under the headline 'Fejnhom tal- ambjent?' (Where are the environmentalists?). You will, of course, immediately note the stereotyping implicit in that blanket category, 'tal- ambjent'. A representative of the party which once campaigned to 'unite Malta', now actively seeks to categorise its inhabitants into neat little cubicles: with the express intention to distinguish between 'tal- ambjent', and… 'tal-Lejber'. To put it another way: if the prime minister's right-hand man questions the whereabouts of 'environmentalists' – as if he were talking about a separate species altogether – then it follows that he doesn't count himself (and by extension, his boss) among their number. Ah, such consistency from the 'Malta Taghna Lkoll ' days! Remember all the PL billboards that promised to 'safeguard the environment' before the election? Where are they now, Glenn? Where are your precious Labour Party's environmentalist credentials now, that you yourself make such a distinction between 'Labour' and 'the environment'? There are other reasons for asking the same question. Glenn's blogpost was sparked by the fact that his prime minister had just come out against a suggestion to expand the existing Freeport: arguing that any such expansion would have to encroach upon ODZ land… and, more pertinently, that the quality of life of nearby Birzebbugia residents would be adversely affected. Again, Glenn's query rebounds upon himself. Where has the Labour government's concern with 'quality of life' gone all of a sudden? Its representative on the PA board has just voted in favour of a project that – exactly like the Freeport expansion – will have a massively deleterious impact on the urban environment of Sliema, and all its residents. Why is Labour concerned with safeguarding the quality of life in Birzebbugia… yet at the same time only too happy to condemn 'Slimizi ' to eternal construction, pollution, traffic congestion, and daily disruptions of even the most basic services? OK, this one's easy. Because unlike their Southern counterparts', 'Slimizi '