Stephen Calleja makes some quite valid points about the theory and practice of consultation (TMIS, 11 April); but in the end, like most party hacks, he ends up knee-deep in cow excrement.

The notion of consultation certainly does not rule out responsibility for a final decision; in fact it demands it, as one cannot ‘consult’ indefinitely, though we have had at least one case of that. Consultation on a National Energy Policy started in June 1996, a mere 14 years ago. A final draft had just been put back by another two years, until the Delimara dragon, the offspring of another dose of “consultation”, which changed absolutely nothing, comes on stream.

Calleja takes a couple of shortcuts in his eagerness to whip “Astrid & Alex”. He skates over the fact that real consultation usually results in some modification of the original proposals. This has not been the case in the Valletta gate project. To justify that fact, Calleja pompously tells “Astrid & Alex” that they are not Renzo Piano, indeed that they are not worthy to untie his bootlaces. He also forgets that the Parliament-behind-the-door was not a Renzo Piano idea at all, but one produced by lesser mortals. Even so, there was not the slightest shift on it. This was “consultation” with an evident take-it-or-leave element.

On the question of case officer–Mepa board disagreements, Calleja again rides on the bandwagon of personal attack, pretending to be horrified at “the cheek” shown by “Alex”. There is no mention of the general problem – the high rate of case officer–Mepa board disagreement, whichever way the final decisions go. No serious organisation can function properly with such a level of internal disagreement. Decisions go like alternating current, brilliantly summed up by the Mepa chairman/CEO’s recent statement that ‘this board will not sanction illegalities’, other than that of his own dual position, of course. By clear implication, the ‘other’ board did. And in February 2008 the case officers said “no” and the board said “yes”, while this time around it went the other way. Calleja’s very sensitive hype detector did not register in this case. Clearly, it uses direct current only.

But Calleja really put his foot in the cow-pat in his re-call of the bad, old pre-1987 days, when, going by his mug shot, he cannot have been active. There were people in the recent demonstration who were also in pre-1987 demonstrations. And among these there was relief that we had reached a level of civilised behaviour in these situations that “no one was trying to beat them up, lock them up or torture them”. Yet there were few illusions that this was due to an intrinsically loftier morality on the part of the government or of party hacks. They simply preferred different, more covert methods. These include allowing ancient Mepa files containing applications of protesters suddenly finding themselves on Calleja’s desk to be ruthlessly exposed to his undoubted interpretative talents, while files of cronies mysteriously de-materialised during transport between offices; three-monkey enforcement officers scouring the Rabat countryside around Ta’ Baldu; concerted attacks on upstart auditors; secret electoral promises to sign away large tracts of public land to house ‘non-Piano’ shacks; vicious bloggers with papal pretentions; setting up “fall-guys”, while the real perpetrators of ‘interessi privati in atti d’ufficio’ go scot free.

All in all we should thank heaven for the Stephen Callejas of this world. If that is the best our adversaries can put up, then we are doing really well.

E.A. Mallia

ATTARD