Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/755517
maltatoday, SUNDAY, 27 NOVEMBER 2016 15 of the country. The government has also changed its land-use policy to permit ODZ develop- ment for 'national projects'. All this also concerns Mercieca closely, as chair of the environ- ment committee. What is his own opinion of the masterplan... and, more broadly, of his gov- ernment's environmental re- cord? "First of all, we're getting a lot of criticism over construc- tion, but everyone is missing the point. This government is in the process of reducing the coun- try's carbon footprint to the low- est possible levels. The fact that we're getting an energy mix, a gas-powered power station, the interconnector, resulting in low- er emissions... all this is being totally ignored. But on the sub- ject of construction: do we want to have areas of land 100% de- veloped... or do we want to have 50% of that land used as public space, and the rest high-rise? Also, if that area was earmarked for high-rise, it wasn't by us but by the Nationalist government, with the FAR policy. Either way, I'd rather have high-rise restrict- ed to certain areas, than spread throughout Malta..." It seems however that we are getting both. Paceville, Sliema, Gzira are all set to shoot up- wards... and meanwhile permits are being given in relatively high landscape worth-areas such as Mriehel, miles from any other high-rise zone. Meanwhile, hun- dreds of new applications are be- ing filed all the time. It's almost as though we're addicted to con- struction like a drug, and high- rise is the new dosage... "Creating wealth also has the effect of having money to put into the environment. You need money to protect the environ- ment. It has to come from some- where. Giving the private inves- tor the opportunity to invest is therefore important. Environ- ment protection and investment go hand in hand..." But investment takes many forms. And the construction in- dustry comes with a very high environmental price tag. Malta's air pollution issues are caused by construction dust (and traffic) more than by fumes from the old power station. Then there's noise pollution. Wouldn't Mer- cieca agree that this government has condemned large parts of the island to constant inconven- ience for the foreseeable future? "Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that everything this gov- ernment is doing is perfect. It's not as though we never make mistakes. It's a learning curve. At the end of the day it's a young government, only four years old. Even as a surgeon: for every operation I do, there's always a learning curve. No matter how good you are. If you don't have problems, it's only because you never did anything. Not because you're very good." Four years is not 'young' for a government. It's almost a full term. And the present gov- ernment was also elected on a promise to be innovative and creative. Yet it doesn't seem to have any alternative to the tra- ditional strategy of over-relying on construction to motor the economy... "I think maybe there is too much construction going on, I'll concede that point. But it's not for me to say which projects can go ahead and which can't. That's for the Planning Authority to decide. But the government has also launched a lot of other in- centives to renovate and use empty properties in towns and villages, to make them habitable again. A lot of such projects are happening: not all the devel- opment going on is new. Even the recent initiative to sanction old buildings which are disused because of minor planning in- fringements... that helps, too. There is a question mark regard- ing which should be sanctioned and which shouldn't, I agree. But these are units that are there, they're already built, and they're not being used. Actually using them is better than leaving them unoccupied." To return to the original sub- ject and broaden it slightly: ear- lier, Mercieca challenged me to name anyone in Malta who doesn't have a potential conflict of interest. The question itself seems to pinpoint the very crux of the matter. It is indeed almost inevitable, when members of parliament are underpaid part- timers who cannot be realistical- ly expected to relinquish private business interests. This systemic problem has long been recog- nised: it was in part to address it that former PM Lawrence Gonzi increased MPs' honoraria in 2008... with political conse- quences that would later prove fatal. Is this situation in part to blame for the pervasive accu- sations of conflict of interest? Would Mercieca accept a situ- ation where MPs were better paid, but excluded from having any other form of vested inter- est? "I think it is one of the most important issues facing the country. It doesn't make sense to have a Prime Minister on 60K, and he appoints a CEO on 130K. It makes no sense whatsoever. Nor should someone who earns 'X' as a salary, suddenly finding himself earning 'X÷10' because he entered politics. If you want good people to be ministers, I think the salaries have to go up. There is no question about it." But hasn't the Labour Party made it politically impossible to do precisely that, because of the fuss it made over the Gonzi honoraria increase? Wouldn't Muscat raising MPs' salaries be seen as a betrayal of his earlier stance? "I don't think so. It's in the pipeline. The problem in Gonzi's time was the way it was done, be- hind everybody's back. Nobody knew about it. It was wrong; you have to be transparent in such matters. There was a chance of finally rectifying that issue, and it was grossly mishandled. Now we are suffering the consequenc- es of that. But in the future, I am sure Joseph Muscat is keen to rectify that issue as well." Interview MP FRANCO MERCIECA defends his role as chairman of the parliamentary committee reviewing the Paceville masterplan, in the face of a potential conflict of interest I work PHOTOGRAPHY BY CHRIS MANGION