Our country is being torn apart by authorities like Infrastructure Malta and only a handful of people are showing the courage to speak up and try to stop the senseless destruction of green and open spaces.

Residents of Triq il-Fraxxnu were taken completely by surprise yesterday when Infrastructure Malta workers, armed with excavators and escorted by the police, showed up to destroy a small garden that was cared for by the people of the area. The agency said it had acquired the necessary permits, but then again, thanks to recent changes in the law, it could still have forged ahead with the works without them.  

Unfortunately, only a few people had the courage to act, including Zebbug independent councillor Steve Zammit Lupi, who single-handedly stopped the destruction of the garden, at least for a while.

Infrastructure Malta said the road needs to be widened, justifying its actions by saying that the plot of land in question is government-owned. But how many times are we going to witness the destruction of precious green lungs on the pretext of road-widening?

Infrastructure Malta is doing this all over the country, and it is doing so all at one go. Much of Malta looks like a construction site because someone, somewhere decided that these projects should be carried out simultaneously.

Now we can understand why certain major road junctions needed to be widened to improve traffic flow, but we are talking here about a residential road in a quiet area of Zebbug. We fail to understand why this road needs to be widened.

Zammit Lupi and some of the residents showed Infrastructure Malta yesterday that they would rather keep the garden than have a wider road. They got their priorities right. Infrastructure Malta did not.

Let us not forget that this is not the first controversy that the agency is involved in in Zebbug. A few days ago, the police confirmed with independent candidate Arnold Cassola that they have resurrected the investigation into illegalities carried out by Infrastructure Malta at nearby Wied Qirda. Two years after the works were carried out and stopped mid-way, the valley remains scarred.

The ongoing police investigation brings some hope that we may yet save some of what we have left because, so far, agencies like Infrastructure Malta have been acting with total impunity.

The real unfortunate thing is that, despite the fact that such destruction is taking place all over Malta and Gozo, most of us remain complacent spectators. The fervour that we saw two years ago when the same entity prepared to chop down dozens of trees in Santa Lucija, Rabat, Luqa and other places seems to have died down. There have been no more protests, no direct action to stop the bulldozers from destroying everything in their path.

It is only people like the young Zebbug councillor, the activists from Moviment Graffitti and some other groups, and a handful of residents that have the courage to speak up and stand up.

In reality, there is only one way to stop this senseless destruction of the environment – and that is to vote out those who are bringing this destruction upon the country. It is pointless to complain about such works if we keep voting these people in.

They will only continue to do the same.