The fact that the government intends to give a Jordanian real-estate speculator a large amount of protected coastal land from which it will evict farmers for the purpose is the most shocking aspect of this entire suspect 'American university' business. But it's not just about the environment or the land or even the farmers, crucial aspects though these are.

It's also about why the government should want to do something like that. What's going on behind the scenes that the government would want to do something so disgraceful and care not a jot about the public response to it? You have to conclude, quite reasonably, that somebody has made it worthwhile for the government, for somebody in the government, for somebody working close to the government, or for the Labour Party. That is a rational conclusion in the circumstances, but unfortunately, we have allowed ourselves to be sidetracked into discussions about the land itself.

Michael Briguglio and the deputy mayor of Marsascala (who sits on the Labour ticket) will be leading a protest meeting at Zonqor Point in two weeks' time. But that protest meeting is going to be all about the land, and it shouldn't be. Michael Briguglio, a politician who was raised in a politically active home, will be particularly aware that the land itself is not quite the issue here, that the real issue is why the government would be bending over backwards to give that land to a Jordanian speculator.

In other words, the main issue here is not the environment but the very real possibility of grave corruption. The environment - the land at Zonqor Point - is collateral damage.

This is why the Opposition should move its focus beyond the land at Zonqor Point and towards the reasons why the government is hell-bent on accommodating Hani Hasan Naji Al Salah and his Palestinian sidekick from Quebec, the self-styled 'immigration consultant'. The shadow minister for education, Therese Comodini Cachia, is doing her best to draw public attention to what she has forcefully called "a total scam", but she is drowned out by the sound of her colleagues banging on about the land at Zonqor Point.

What is the Opposition saying here - that if the government were to relocate its Jordanian friend's project to somewhere more congenial, it will cease to object? Yes, that is exactly what it is saying with its suggestions of alternative sites, a view that clashes head on with its own shadow minister's repeated statements that the 'university' itself and the purpose behind it are highly suspect.

The Opposition has got to understand that objecting to the project solely on the basis of its location is not just totally naïve, but really bad strategy. The issue here is not the environment, but corruption. The environment suffers as a fall-out of corruption. Back in the 1980s, when my contemporaries and I went to all those demonstrations organised by environmental groups, it was not so much the environmental damage we were protesting against, but the brazen corruption that caused it. Without that corruption, there would have been no environmental damage, or rather, no more than strictly required to accommodate a growing population.

In southern mainland Italy and Sicily, the Mafia is the scourge of the environment, the single source of the greatest amount of environmental damage, and it's all down to corruption. It's not a coincidence that where environmental damage is greatest, so is corruption.

I have yet to hear the Opposition ask the one question that should be asked: Why do you want to give this man any land at all? It is not a question that should be asked by the shadow minister for education, either. The seriousness of the matter is such that the Opposition leader should put the question directly to the Prime Minister in Parliament. After all, it is the Prime Minister who has taken the credit, such credit as that is, for the deal.

If the Opposition leader does not ask that question, if he does not drive that point home, he colludes in the normalisation of something thoroughly abnormal: a speculator popping over from Jordan, gaining the ear of the Prime Minister immediately, and obtaining the promise of a large parcel of farmland for free.

I'll put this in context. Exactly what do you think would happen if Sandro Chetcuti were to go to Paris and demand an audience with François Hollande, with the purpose of getting a large piece of land on which to build a 'university'? Would he even get past the receptionist? No, he would not. He would be sent packing. And if he somehow did get his audience with the head of government, the very idea that Hollande would say, "Of course, Monsieur Chetcuti, you can have all that farmland outside Paris with our compliments," is beyond ludicrous.

I can think of a few countries where it would be possible for Sandro Chetcuti to pull off something like that, and they are all the kind of corrupt regimes in which the Prime Minister's personal consultant, Shiv Nair, operates.

One last thing: you don't build a university. You build a university building. Universities are not the building in which they are housed, and you can't simply magic one out of thin air by throwing money at it.

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