“This insistence on ‘let’s kick them out’, honestly I cannot understand”. Minister Silvio Schembri was commenting about a family that is illegally occupying Fort Bingemma, defying eviction orders for years, running up unpaid fines of 24,620 euro and for good measure, installed an illegal swimming pool in that historic fort.
The Buttigieg family has been occupying it since Labour leased it to them as a pig farm. It’s been over years since the lease expired but the Buttigieg family is still there.
But the general public can’t get a look in. Neither can government officials. When they attempted to enter the fort, they found a sturdy iron gate and several vicious dogs preventing them.
But Silvio Schembri doesn’t do rule of law. Schembri, by admission, simply cannot understand what the fuss is about. Why is everybody wanting the law to be enforced? Why can’t you leave people alone to enjoy their illegalities in peace? Why are you picking on them? It’s just because they have a swimming pool and you don’t. Haven’t you pestered my friend Ian Borg enough, because of his illegal swimming pool? Why can’t you let the Foreign Affairs Minister frolic in his pool to his heart’s content? He’s causing nobody any harm.
Let’s get this straight. Labour is pro-business. It’s especially pro-swimming pool business. Swimming pools are the niche business Labour’s champagne socialists are keenest on, and exotic birds. Pools were always Labour’s fetish.
Silvio Schembri is on a mission - to encourage everybody to squat in their favourite historic monument and build a swimming pool in it. He’s publicly guaranteed that if you do so, you’ll be protected. He’ll single handedly confront those negative journalists who keep insisting the law should be obeyed. What kill-joys. They can’t bear to see people having fun in their Victorian fort swimming pool.
“This has been going on since 2011, but in the last few weeks there’ve been all these questions and panic about it, which I cannot understand - but one can reach his own conclusions,” Minister Schembri complained.
Schembri wants you to know that he “cannot understand”. He cannot understand why enforcement notices should be enforced, why fines running into tens of thousands must be paid. He cannot understand why eviction orders should lead to eviction or why historical monuments should be enjoyed by the general public rather than allowed to fall into a state of neglect by squatters. He cannot understand why squatters shouldn’t have the right to throw their torn sofa into the moat. He can’t understand why those squatters shouldn’t be allowed to install a high metal gate to keep everybody else out.
After all, that’s what Labour’s been doing for years. It’s been occupying property illegally, joined adjacent properties together without the owners’ authorisation, made major structural alterations and failed to pay any rent on their Senglea party club.
Hijacking historical treasures for personal delectation is Minister Anton Refalo’s specialty. That other Victorian historical artefact remains in his poolside back-garden. Only Refalo and his family can enjoy it. The Superintendent of Cultural heritage knows about it. So do the police. But since when do the police enforce the law? That’s what the bright spark Silvio Schembri cannot understand - and he’s got a point.
Why should the authorities take Fort Bingemma away from those squatters if Refalo gets to keep his VR stone? Why should squatters pay their fines when no action was taken against Refalo? That would be unfair wouldn’t it? Under Labour everybody has equal opportunity and equal right to flout the law without repercussions. Everybody should have the right to hijack pubic land, historical treasures and hog them for his own enjoyment while denying others that pleasure.
The same applies for swimming pools. Why shouldn’t those squatters be allowed to enjoy the fruit of their illegalities - a beautiful swimming pool in a historic fort - if Minister Ian Borg hasn’t even been sanctioned for his?
Besides, Bingemma is hardly the only Victorian fort in Malta. The public can enjoy any other Victorian era fort if they want to - like Fort Benghisa. No, not that one. That one is illegally occupied by another family. They’ve made Fort Benghisa their private property, ignoring two eviction notices and a 2016 planning authority enforcement. And built garages illegally inside the fort, dumping building debris in the moat. But Minister Schembri cannot understand why the panic, why all these questions.
His contemptible disdain for the journalists asking him about the hijacked forts was written all over his face. He looked like a teenage gang leader. “We had other priorities in the country, not these,” he retorted, turning away in disgust.
Now what could those priorities be? Maybe finding those elusive rental agreements for his district offices in Siggiewi and Luqa. On 20th April Schembri promised he would provide evidence that he had paid rent on his two constituency offices. Over a month later he’s still looking for the evidence.
Or maybe he’s still trying to reconcile the massive gap between what he told parliament about MBR Offices and what the NAO found. Schembri misled parliament when he declared that leasing a bathroom showroom in Zejtun as MBR offices was ‘only’ costing taxpayers 500,000 euro. The Auditor General found it was costing four times as much. The country is paying 26 million euro for that bathroom showroom lease - and another 5 million euro to refurbish it into offices. That’s 31 million of our money. But Minister Schembri doggedly refuses to publish the lease contract, turning down multiple FOI requests.
That is Minister Schembri’s priority - concealing the multi-million “prohibitive” deals he strikes with his friends from the public - not protecting the public good.