A racetrack in the sea and other brilliant ideas

Malta Independent Friday, 20 December 2013, 07:56 Last update: about 13 years ago

The government has received 21 proposals, from 17 companies, for land reclamation projects. It has appointed a committee to evaluate them on the basis of how innovative they are and their “environmental, social and financial viability”. We don’t yet know who the members of this committee are, though given the government’s commitment to transparency, we shall doubtless be told.

Going by the scant details reported so far, nobody can accuse any of the project proposers of having too much imagination. One of them has suggested a race track and others sports facilities (because it really makes sense to spend millions, cause a great deal of environmental disruption and distort the coastline to have somewhere people can race cars – I am assuming it is for cars – or play sports). Others have proposed “boutique hotels”, which misses the point that a boutique hotel newly built on a part of the coast distorted by landfill for the purpose is a paradox. Then there is a business centre – apparently because we have to dump material into the sea and extend the coastline so as to have somewhere to build yet another one of those. And there is also a floating village, which will be a lot of fun in a January gregale. Some of them, curiously and contradictorily, propose land reclamation to create new bays and “green areas”. So little of it makes any sense: while the government plans changes to development guidelines which will encourage development in existing rural and green areas, it is receiving proposals to dump building waste into the sea to create fake green areas which can never be proper green areas because if they are, how will the developers make money from them?

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I find it fascinating the way the Labour Party continues to harp on the oil deal corruption scandal as though it were somehow Nationalist politicians or members of their families who were receiving bribes or giving them. It is a great big smokescreen designed to obscure the fact that Tarcisio Mifsud’s name has most has come up in bright lights as one of the individuals who took large bribes as a matter of routine.

Once again, unfortunately, the Nationalist Party, perhaps through some misguided sense of fair play which leaves it hapless and helpless in the face of the Labour Party’s games, has for some reason decided not to fight back with constant repetition of this fact. The result is that almost nobody knows who Tarcisio Mifsud is, his strong and direct links to the Labour Party, and the fact that he is the one cited as being the regular recipient of bribe money. Amazing, really, how Labour has been allowed to get away with this one.

Manuel Mallia said during the election campaign that despite his direct involvement with the Farrugia brothers as their legal counsel, he had no idea of the oil deal corruption issue. I found that hard to believe at the time, because isn’t that how the matter came to light originally – when George Farrugia’s brothers began to suspect him of acting to their financial detriment and had his records and communications investigated?

Now George Farrugia has said before the Public Accounts Committee that Manuel Mallia knew all along, that he has known about it for the last three years. But Mallia said at electoral press conferences, with totally unsuitable drama but then he is a man who performs constantly before jurors even when he isn’t: “And I repeat before the people of Malta and Gozo, and before you journalists who may ask me whatever you wish – I knew nothing about this before reading about it in the newspapers.” He also said: “I did not know there is bribery in the purchase of oil. I was probably much as you are, just another Maltese citizen who thought that oil was bought in a straightforward way.”

I suppose there are many people reading that who resent the suggestion that we are in any way like Manuel Mallia, and who are scathing of his idea that he is just another Maltese citizen who believes that people are straight in their dealings. He is, after all, a criminal lawyer. His firm faith in the goodness and straightness of human nature is, however, touching.