The attitude taken by various authorities on the issue of taking urgent action to ensure public safety in view of unsafe buildings is one which we have grown accustomed to in Malta.
To sum the story up, this newspaper contacted the police who told us that they are completely dependent on the courts in taking action. The police told us that Mepa can help them by “offering more assistance”. Mepa, on the other hand, told us that they act within the parameters of the law. The Malta Independent decided to contact the Occupational Health and Safety Authority – and we were told that such issues do not fall within their remit. The Civil Protection told us that they cannot enter private property unless in cases of emergency – that is when it is too late and an accident has taken place.
To play our final card, we contacted the Justice and Home Affairs Ministry which told us that the situation is a result of people not wanting to take responsibility for such dwellings. A spokesman told us that he did not believe that there was lack of coordination between authorities and he also believed that the law was strong enough and granted good executive powers.
Just what planet are we living on? How can we have hundreds (if not thousands) of buildings in Malta which are ready to collapse at any given instant where the only consideration given to passers-by or residents is a flimsy police barrier on the pavement to stop people walking ‘under’ a potential building collapse?
How can anyone say that the given state of affairs is an acceptable one? When will we truly learn what it means to be European and to do things in a European manner? Is the simple act of placing a police barrier outside a shambles of a building tantamount to European standards and ways of doing things?
No. It is not. This is the traditional Maltese way of doing things… that curiously Mediterranean and reticent attitude of laissez-faire. It is a bit like when we were told that road contractors were to replace ‘zips’ in roads with ‘carpets’ when they dig up somewhere (normally a few weeks after it has been laid). We were told that Malta’s roads are not that bad and that we should try the roads in Athens. We simply cannot do with this attitude anymore. The government and its departments cannot continue to tell us that we now compete with the ‘big league’ and that we are fully European in our ways of doing things to then be presented with such a situation.
Quite frankly, the replies given to this newspaper were an attempt to brush the matter under the carpet without any thought. It seems that the authorities think that the current state of affairs is fine and that this publishing house was making a meal out of an issue that is inexistent. Well. We will close by posing a very simple question: Is a building, ready to collapse at any moment, with a shop showing its wares with people standing out to look at them, something which we can leave unchecked? Is this the European way of doing things? The answers are clear. We are not expecting every single problem on these little islands of ours to be cleared up overnight. But where there is a problem – we expect it to be, at the very least, acknowledged, and not swept under the carpet.