On the occasion of the papal visit last year, President Vella made a heartfelt plea for us to protect the environment.

In his erudite words, he exclaimed that our planet is sick, angry and tired. "Yet we keep ignoring its manifest signs of environmental degradation, climate change and exploitation of its resources." In turn, the Pope advised the ruling party at Castille, to never cede in their vigil to fight corruption, kill impunity, foster honesty in politics and stop unbridled construction and land speculation.

Did we heed his words? Not exactly, as more high-rise and upmarket hotels/towers have been sanctioned and the race to build higher and wider continues unabated. His Holiness did not mince words... the wind-swept islands of St Paul, must rekindle their conscience to protect civil society by inculcating honesty, justice, a sense of duty and transparency.

Is it a pie in the sky for the tiny island to eliminate illegality, pigging and corruption? He reminded President George Vella, that the proverbial north wind sweeps the coast leaving a clean sweep of any detritus and achieves a serene existence. He repeatedly invoked a message of legality and transparency to the "Phoenician-bred" people when he visited the Grandmaster Palace.

Tales of rapacious greed and avarice revealed by independent press serve as a warning that the tolerance of honest people has its limits. The massacre of a journalist more than five years ago amid an absence of impunity oozing from party apologists, all reminds us how the ringmaster killer/s has not yet been charged. 

In other countries (e.g. Paris) protestors take to the streets. His Papal message to young generations is to continue protecting the environment and fight for the promotion of social justice. A persistent level of impunity paves the way for unhealthy politics ushering a feeling of nonchalance in an unhealthy cocktail particularly among the Millennials.

The protection of our heritage especially land believed to have been inhabited by Bronze Age ancestors seem very lax. Let us quote an example. Din l-Art Helwa has called for the intervention of the Superintendence for Cultural Heritage and for the Planning Authority concerning an application by a developer to remove the top soil on a three tumoli site in Tal Wej, Mosta - a hallowed ground hosting bronze age remains.

Thanks to the environmentalists, this was spared the pangs of Lower Inferno. Soul lobbied unsung and unaided for years to protect this sacred burial ground in Mosta from the ravages of demolition and building works. The Superintendent of Cultural Heritage proclaimed that another site, known as il-Wesgha tal-Gganti, enjoys low archaeological value saying that he cannot afford to protect all areas within the approved development plan as this will be tantamount to classify the entire spatial plan as "fossil" Malta.

But residents disagree, saying that if regulators bend backwards to bow to speculators, the latter marshal in excavators to dig up ancestor tombs, crush dolmens and catacombs; in the end we destroy our heritage and all this will eventually turn the island into a jungle of glass and concrete structures - a soul-less and prurient "Love Island".

This saga begs the question, what is the cost of protecting our heritage from overzealous developers and can benefits of commercial exploitation of such land ever outweigh the loss of our patrimony? Only recently minister Miriam Dalli announced a super fund of €700m earmarked for a Project Green, intended to save and protect the environment. This fund is spread over seven years.

According to an official statement, the first milestone for 2023 would be to plant 7,500 trees and shrubs, which are supposed to be financed through investments from the private sector. But this month, she announced a mere €5m to be spent over the first year to select a number of land pockets to be spruced, planted and made available to families. Surely not the message Pope Francis wanted, to reach the heartstrings of our elected leaders where environment is concerned. 

In contrast, heeding Prime Minister Robert Abela, in his New Year's Eve message, he proclaimed that his government's primary objective has been to guarantee "peace of mind that our country is moving in the right direction". He has repeatedly described life in Malta as "serene", with people who live here enjoying "peace of mind - creating an utopia in the Med. Listening to him warms our hearts. He is full of positive posturing and augurs that Malta is harnessing its economic growth to ensure every citizen will be able to live a better life, in a caring society, and a more beautiful country that offers the very best quality of life. Rightly so, the Pope cautions us to slow unbridled construction and land speculation yet on the contrary, the Malta Developers Association has a diagonally opposite view.

Derelict land in ODZ does not pay taxes, stamp duty but when PA sanctions them with permits and allows trees to be uprooted, these are developed into hotel towers/or offices or luxury private villas. The recent NGO protest in Valletta against such abuses, which turn vices into virtue, but party apparatchiks disagree reminding us how such abuse and ruination of the environment yields a windfall of revenue.

All the while, there is healthy prognosis that Malta is expected to continue growing with the annual GDP to advance 4.1% at constant prices in 2040. A sober warning by the finance minister forebodes us that natives will become a minority group by 2040, when population races to reach 800,000.

The build-up is not from natural growth (fertility at 1.1% is the lowest in EU) but by unbridled immigration. Allow me to distress and identify some uncomfortable realities that need to be addressed. The fly in the ointment is the €400m blanket subsidy for energy and grain imports. This does not encourage cutting waste, on the contrary it increases levels of inequality since the rich benefit at the same rate as the low-income cohorts.

The Commission has warned us to cut such largesse and instead spend such subsidies (not very popular with voters) by reducing debt. May I end this article by again quoting Pope Francis' words during his short visit last year.

"Malta must therefore be kept safe from rapacious greed, from avarice and from construction speculation, which compromises not only the landscape but the very future. Instead, the protection of the environment and the promotion of social justice must prepare us for the future and find optimal ways to instil in young people a passion for healthy politics." In the end, pray to God that it shields the nation from temptation to indifference and lack of commitment." Amen. 

gmm@pkfmalta.com

George M. Mangion is a senior partner at PKF Malta