The news of the past hours have proposed a new twist to the saying Cast in Stone.

For no sooner than the Prime Minister said he intends to put all his power into delving into the Mater Dei Hospital structure defects than this paper’s sister Sunday issue was claiming that defects in the piles being dug to offer stability to the new power station had been found and Minister Konrad Mizzi himself was confirming this was the case.

Then followed a firestorm of denials and very hot phone calls.

Whatever, as many people probably know to their cost, there can be huge uncertainty on the stability of building works even in the private sector, let alone in the public sector where the quantities one speaks about are in hundreds of thousands and millions.

This is one area, laying the foundations of a building, which will always remain buried but which, if anything had to happen, shows up a good foundation from a bad one. Thankfully, we are not in an earthquake zone such as, for instance, Japan.

There are areas where a normal house is built on solid rock and, especially if this house is just a two storey one, the foundations do not have to be that elaborate.

But since we are seeing the erection of multi-storey buildings and also since not all areas where construction is taking place are in rock-solid rock foundations, and also since some areas are heavy with clay deposits, the stabilization of the foundations has come to have absolute importance.

This is even more important where heavy plant will be housed, such as Mater Dei Hospital or even, just to speculate, the new Power Station.

One must not lump the entire construction sector as completely and totally corrupt although the fact that big projects are being taken up with a multiplicity of contractors does not help in establishing the right lines of responsibility.

Yet, as in most other things, we as a country, need to come up to a higher level of accountability and to ensure that rules are followed and that clear parameters are set.

One wonders why this need has not so far surfaced as regards the private sector and also why the public sector seems to lurch from allegation to allegation before anything concrete (sorry, pun intended) is done.

There must be, there surely are, ways and methods how to quantify and to check what is put in. In fact, such measurements exist all over the world and many contracts, abroad, insist on the specifications.

We may cast a rather questioning look at the existing high-rises etc and wonder what lies underneath them, but we must also start to insist on clear rules and standards being set with regards to what is still under construction.