So, just as you are reading this, the staff at the Maltese Representation in Brussels is busily toiling away carrying boxes and things from its cluttered, small, over-crowded office in Rue Belliard to its gleaming new office in Rue Archimede just across the road from the European Commission Berlaymont building.

Dar Malta, the butt of so many jokes and scandalmongers over the past years, will finally open its doors tomorrow.

Do we care to review all that was said, written and opined when Dar Malta was on everybody’s lips, when it was being cited as an example of the government’s profligacy and “money no problem” attitude, when doubts were being cast on who stood to make some money from this decision or who forced whose hands to get this property for Malta?

After a tidal wave of innuendos swept over Malta, the Public Accounts Committee was pushed to investigate the purchase and, in a series of public hearings it uncovered no hidden scandal or any irregular transaction.

Even so, however, some of the mud that was slung remains. For many, too many, months, the building stood derelict and neglected on that very prestigious corner, with many Maltese making a beeline to see that building even before they visited the Berlaymont or the European Parliament, many even writing their scandalised comments on the unpainted entrance.

The location is undoubtedly very prestigious for small Malta but one cannot but help remember that big Poland chose a far smaller and less costly building to represent it and that Malta, the smallest accession country, has been the one to spend the most. And, for all the Representation’s staff toiling up the hill from Rue Belliard to Rue Archimede this weekend, the same floor space down at Rue Belliard, where “A Louer” notices hang from many windows, would have certainly cost far less than the Lm9 million the building in Rue Archimede has cost (including its refurbishment).

And now we even have it from The Times’ correspondent in Brussels that the 13-storey building is still far too big for the 50 Maltese staff as the Permanent Representation and the Maltese embassy to Brussels will occupy the top five floors of the building leaving no less than four storeys and more space in the three-storey underground garage for future leasing. We were also told that the government intended to lease almost half the building to private firms and to third parties to generate income to part-compensate for the capital investment. But later we were informed the unoccupied floors is to be reserved for that day in 2013 when Malta assumes the EU presidency.

Whatever the controversies in the past, the building is now ready and about to open and, just as has happened on far weightier matters, this will once again be a subject about which the Opposition will quietly shelve its media campaign. One looks forward to the day when Prime Minister Alfred Sant enters the building and looks out at the Berlaymont he so well remembers from his youthful days in Brussels.

We can find the same fingerprint, the same DNA, in another building nearing completion and inauguration: the Mater Dei Hospital. Again, the same over-the-top gigantism from quite small beginnings: what was planned to be Malta’s second and restricted hospital quite suddenly became Malta’s sole new hospital, the biggest building site in Europe about whose recurrent expenditure a former prime minister admitted to having nightmares. The same penchant for leaving an indelible mark on history, money no problem, and the coming generations left to pay for our profligacy.

Only, this time there was, naturally, far more. Cost overruns galore, time-scales not adhered to (and this time the Brussels city planning office had nothing to do with it) and now this IT issue. For all Dr Gonzi’s claim that it is only a “serious administration” that dares block the tendering process at the eleventh hour, there are other problems which would have come to light had the IT issue not cropped up – such as the lack of involvement of doctors and nurses in the entire migration plan, when this is just four months away. Serious administration indeed!

Once again, however, there are no heroes and no victims evenly spread on either side of the political divide. For while Labour had nothing to do with the Dar Malta case, it was the decision taken by the Labour administration which suddenly doubled the hospital size and decided it would be Malta’s sole hospital.

And so it goes on, while we leave our grandchildren monuments of our profligacy lying around and while the rest of the country goes about building every nook and cranny on this small island. It is only because the economy is now doing well that we can still afford such monuments, hoping our children will find good service in them and will pardon our profligacy.