Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/779073
maltatoday, SUNDAY, 29 JANUARY 2017 26 Letters The Occupational Health and Safety Au- thority has initiated proceedings against the developers of the former Holiday Inn Crowne Plaza, after stopping construc- tion works on site due to safety risks. Some 108 workers from the former Crowne Plaza – chefs, managers, head waiters, housekeepers and receptionists – were told to take up tools and offload stones, drop walls, and remove obsolete electrical wiring at the former hotel after government sold the hotel to Imperial Point Company Ltd. The Crowne Plaza will be sold as part of the Fort Cambridge development brief, which includes the restoration of the fort beneath the hotel. Earlier this year a promise of sale was signed with Imperial Point. Entrepreneur George Muscat, whose interests straddle Bay Street Holdings, Legend Real Estate and Tigné Estates, ac- cepted to provide alternative employment for the former Crowne Plaza staff back in 2006 when government started negotia- tions to sell the hotel for Lm23.3 million. The promise-of-sale was signed at the turn of the year after reports that Muscat had lost his Lm100,000 bid bond for fail- ing to sign the multi-million contract on November 30, 2006. Muscat had also been paying Lm50,000 in salaries every month to the former ho- tel employees until last November. With government intending to move ahead with negotiations with other bidders after Muscat refused to sign the contract, he stopped paying the salaries. Only two weeks ago, Muscat told the hotel staff to report for work on the hotel site, turning chefs into builders and painters, restaurant and duty managers and accounts clerks in charge of plumb- ing and electrical works, and posting four chambermaids at the site's perimeter night watchmen. Four other workers are believed to have been sent off working on another construction site. Altogether they have been busy build- ing walls, removing beams and wires, clearing way debris, working with jiggers to bring down walls, plastering, digging foundations and clearing debris – over- night turned into construction workers with no form of experience or safety training. Yesterday, Alternattiva Demokratika chairperson Harry Vassallo lambasted what he termed investments minister Austin Gatt's "hit and run" at the Crowne Plaza. "While the government boasts it has made Lm23m from the sale, it has not provided for the fate of over a hundred families involved… Workers who have developed their careers to the highest levels in the catering and hospitality sec- tors have been transferred overnight into the construction sector. The guarantee of employment until retirement turns out to be a joke in bad taste." Developer George Muscat is expected to construct a Lm50 million complex for 386 apartments and a four-level under- ground car park. He will be required to restore Fort Cambridge, which lies beneath the hotel. Harry Vassallo yesterday said the Sliema and Tigné area was already in crisis be- cause of overdevelopment and overbur- dened by traffic. "Adding 386 apartments is clearly unwise… when the Tigné and Manoel Island project is fully functioning the increase in traffic is expected to lead to gridlock in Gzira and Msida." OHSA stop Crowne Plaza works and take court action News – 28 January, 2008 Send your letters to: The Editor, MaltaToday, MediaToday Ltd. Vjal ir-Rihan, San Gwann SGN 9016 | Fax: (356) 21 385075 E-mail: newsroom@mediatoday.com.mt. Letters to the Editor should be concise. No pen names are accepted. Not fit for purpose A hand dealt from the bottom of the pack Appreciation: Cecil Pace Another one of those "corrup- tion scandal" stories – the story about the medical visas corrup- tion allegations made by Libyan businessman Khaled Ben Na- san – used by the PN and its allies in the media to attack the PL government, is about to be blown to smithereens. According to this report, the police investigations have given the result that the so-called 'whistleblower' Ben Nasan, who was making the allegations against civil servant Neville Gafa, had in fact been sending mobile phone death threats to himself using one of seven mobile phones he owns! The same report says that the police had found no proof whatsoever of any graft involving Neville Gafa, who not only had denied the allegations but had sus- pended himself from work until the investigation is completed. It is expected that Ben Nasan would in future be charged in court. Although serious doubts had been cast about Ben Na- san's allegations even by the representative of the Tripoli Administration, Simon Busuttil had attacked the government for "not protecting" Ben Nasan and went as far as to state that he (Simon Busuttil) would hold the prime minister "personally responsible" if something were to happen to Ben Nasan or his children ! Yet again, the leader of the op- position continues to prove that he lacks good political acumen. In his greed to clutch on to any story which he believes could earn him political points, he in- variably ends up with egg on his face! Apart from his decision to accept Salvu Mallia as a PN candidate, this has happened to him also on the Individual Investor Programme (IIP), the AUM project, the Barth Medi- cal School in Gozo, the Vitals Healthcare Group's projects in Malta and Gozo, and the last but certainly the biggest project, the ElectroGas power station at Delimara ! I said it and will say it again. Dr Busuttil is not fit for pur- pose as PN leader, let alone as an alternative prime minister. Eddy Privitera Mosta Ok, you belly-aching Maltese. You've been griping for the last four years about how democ- racy has dealt you a toxic hand. What would you have done, had you been in America, democra- cy's torch-bearer, and you were dealt The Donald? You may not have done any- thing much, just as you haven't here. Perhaps all you would have "done" was to say that you were dealt a hand from the bottom of the pack, and called democracy a mockery, just as you seem to be calling the EU now. A trump card and a bum steer on a rogue map? Joe Genovese Birkirkara As I set out on my career as a journalist, my budding years were also taken up by taking down notes from Cecil Pace when the business magnate was sharing his story with MaltaToday in 2003. As Saviour Balzan will remark about that particular year, the BICAL stories – which detailed the rise and fall of Pace's business empire at the hands of the Mintoff government – had been crucial in lifting the pro- file of MaltaToday. They are stories that merit revisiting and fine- tuning, especially since the pen with which they were written reflects the author's youth. Now that Cecil is no longer physically among us, it behoves me to share my memory of the gentle- man. I was 23 and sat inside the large living-room of his Ta' Xbiex home, Shangri-la. The stale smell of cigar smoke clung to the furniture inside his living room, where Cecil recounted the ordeal he endured when BICAL was taken under administration. He was generous and shared his Cohibas with me, and took interest in my unimportant musings on life, by dispensing grandfatherly advice on such mun- dane problems as relationships, family and work. He did this with kindness and patience, happy to share his time with me. Cecil Pace's dethroning in 1973, in the main re- sulting from his bank's liquidity levels, was never a fact he shied away from. But when he recounted his ordeal, Cecil was angry (his anger never mani- fested itself in any form of rage) at the way his business empire had been ruthlessly dismembered and at what he felt was a wilfully long prison term designed to put him away for good. He spoke fondly of his late wife, and children, with me; it was evident that his incarceration had taken a toll on his loved ones. He was also a devout Catholic who placed a great deal of im- portance on spirituality. From the way he spoke, I gathered that Cecil accepted with grace the ordeal he had endured, in that this was the plan, unenvi- able and unwanted though it was, that his life had to go through. He was certainly a fighter. The injustice with which the control of his assets had been carried out, propelled him into long legal battles to chal- lenge the wrongful administration of BICAL com- panies. It was an exasperating chore to endure such long drawn-out court cases to regain compa- nies that were being broken off injudiciously. There is no single anecdote that captures my experience of Cecil Pace. I remember him smiling, and also comforted that a newspaper had taken up his plight. And I also remember the cigars more than anything else. I never got the impression that Cecil was an unhappy man. As a business magnate he was no longer in 'Xanadu', but as a man of humility, he looked content in Shangri-la, where he enjoyed the memories of his wife and the company of his family. Matthew Vella Editor, MaltaToday