Desperation. Nothing but frustrating, furious, angry and sad desperation has gripped us all now. The feeling is a collective one. Some feel it and keep quiet because they want to protect their own interest whilst others suffer helplessly and live in fear. This is what the building industry has brought us to. We are on our knees. Others are on a high.
The standard of quality and service in Malta and Gozo is languishing. Starting from the standards held by our Minister of Finance orour Minister of Education, to the joke of the ex-Police Commissioner and the Force which unbelievably managed to sink itself even further on the back of the racket by the Traffic Police department, to the poor service in public transport and the 5 hour waits at the Outpatients department at Mater Dei and similar or longer at A&E. Then lying on a trolley in a corridor or a bed in a crowded makeshift ward.
It is evident too, in our attitude to foreigners when they remark about rudeness or racism and in the exploitation of their work. It is there too, in the way that women are treated by many men, who see them simply as a sex object. Or in the way that we drive, full of road rage and ready to speed whenever we can. Parking in front of garages, double parking and parking tables and chairs on a platform on the road, breathing in fumes. Dangerously, you can see it too in our poor environmental standard and medieval plans to take land from farmers to provide space for a wrecked project at Wasteserv. Of course, we are besieged by the road works and the fracas of the Central Link project, by the killing of trees and the tarmacking of country lanes and vegetation or the restaurants built on sandy or rocky shores.
But most of all and above all, we see the lack of standard and the amateur practices of the construction industry who operate as though they are the soldiers of God on a mission to destroy. Here all hell is let loose.
The industry has been told to regulate and to take stock of what has happened with properties that have fallen down due to excavation adjacent to them. They barely took the time to put a coat of paint on the regulations that they were going to ignore anyway and continued their business as usual. The MDA would claim that, as with the hunters, not all abuse. Of course, that is understood. But still, the legacy of Joseph Muscat is there and the MDA must take responsibility for allowing a culture of impunity, greed and bullying of the residents to go unchecked. The rape and ravaging of our villages, our views and skylines, our open spaces, roads, towns both historic and cosmopolitan, because they can, has now reached critical proportions and physical and psychological costto human life. And they call it progress.
It is irrelevant whether a project is done as it should be, by the larger developers, or if it is a scrap job by a two-bit contractor. The overall mentality has to change and must take into account the sustainability and the cost to our health and well-being. We all were grieved by the loss of life of a lovely lady, a mother, a wife and family member in her prime. And we are all afraid of it happening near us, to us. The words of a mother advising her child to run for her life and not look back, should something happen in their flat, is eerie. Another woman rightly insists that the contractors who cause a property to fall should first re-build the fallen house before even touching another machine or brick in their project.
I, for one, after having lost view and privacy to the hotel built in the valley at the back of my house (having been promised privacy fencing which they ignore now) so that the guests briefly sit on the balcony and look at their mobile, will be facing construction of a residential block spread over the 3 houses adjacent to mine. These are the type of houses that share a dividing wall or party wall I think it’s called. I can just imagine the cracks opening up and the risk to property besides the ungodly hours of noise, dust and machinery. It is an area of continuous development with no regard for the residents. Another requirement which should be introduced is that every permit should have a liason officer assigned to protect the neighbours. Someone properly trained to do the job and ensure that laws are observed.
When we are living in anarchy, when excavation and machinery starts rolling in before sunrise, the need for such intervention is imperative. No mercy, no decency, no regard whatsoever for civilised residential areas. This morning, leaving my office at lunch break, I had a choice of where to pass. Either through a street with just a flimsy façade of stone hanging on, on both sides of the street, with the crane in the middle. Or else on an upturned road where the machines are cutting trenches.
Sadly, people are broken now. They have lost the courage and the will to protest about the damage and the loss. They know that all the new regulations were just cosmetic and the rogues continue unchecked, often with the acquiescence of the professionals. They know now too that some developers were protected by the police so what use in calling the police station? Anyway, the police say they will pass by and then they never do. It can be a Sunday or a Feast Day and work still goes on. Many sites still worked in the Summer although there is meant to be a stop to excavation in tourist areas. When a big concrete platform is built onto the pavement and across the narrow street, they know that that will be their fate for the next year or months ahead.
Besides all of this, is the real ugliness all around us. Old, pretty streets, with families and neighbours are now faceless and full of cars and garages. From a row of 1 or 2 storey houses, we now have block after block of apartments.Our own language is heard less and less and Serbian or Russian is probably a second language in Malta. In Nadur, Gozo, people come knocking at their door to inform the resident that their house belongs not to them but to a stranger. And all of this whilst a third generation of owners are still being paid peanuts in rent by the tenant due to the rental laws which were meant to be reformed but continued to deprive owners of their right to property.
The general conclusion is one: Greed. But not just normal human nature greed. It is a systematic, ingrained greed. One which has been sanctioned by the government of Joseph Muscat, Ian Borg and the sham Planning Authority. By the lah-di-dah Malta Development Association and its pretend organisation of wanna-be tycoons.
All laid out ready for the picking. House after house, field after field, penthouse after penthouse. Permit no problem. What should be an industry of the highest regulation and standards is a mixer of cement without a licence. Just chuck in the cement, add water and pour. But as long as Robert Abela and the President of the MDA says we’re good, no worries.
It is imperative that standards are raised throughout the industry, without further words. Articles carried in this newspaper this week, by architect Fortunato Said and Civil Society Network are all laying out the overhaul that needs to be done if there is ever to be some progress on health and safety and sustainability. It is time that Robert Abela listens and acts without first checking with Joseph Muscat and Sandro Chetcuti on how far he should go. Lives depend on it. That is how serious it is. Today a family will bury their mother. Today a family and the nation mourns again.