Must read • 20 July 2003

The untouchables

They are the untouchables according to Saviour Balzan, some contractors have no respect for the norms in a civilised European state and consider themselves to be above the law

Employing Arab workers is not a crime. Employing Arab workers without a book and devising a way of not paying them is immoral, and definitely criminal.

There a number of contractors who abuse their power, one in particular who happens to believe that he is not only above the law, but that he is the law. Should I spell out his name?

I need not.

Maltese contractors, big and small, are lured into employing foreign workers because they simply cannot find enough Maltese to do the work.

Better still, the wages for foreign workers are a pittance compared to those of the Maltese. The contractors, many of whom are themselves speculators and are responsible for many of our environmental ills, avoid applying for work permits because the expats division simply refuse their applications. Hence the abuse.

It is an open secret that during the construction of some well known hotels in St Julian’s, that Mecca of concrete, pungent aromas and noise, foreign workers were hurling concrete slabs to meet deadlines for contractors.

Appropriately, or should we say conveniently, when the time came for the workers to be released and hopefully paid, the police were tipped off and somehow a raid followed.

Unshaven Arabs with dirty t-shirts and unmanicured hands have no vote. So when our newsroom asked the Home Affairs ministry for some relevant information on police raids, dates and immigrants, there was little or no reason to ruffle feathers and no answers were forthcoming.

When it comes to dealing with the press, some of our ministries are still living in Mintoff mode.

I do not know how much these Arabs are paid and in what conditions they are made to live, but judging from Christian standards, it must be close to slave labour.

Not all contractors are mean, egotistic, macho bulldozers but the more successful ones are.

They have in many ways elevated themselves to the position of ‘untouchables.’ They can bulldoze their way through roads, block roads with impunity, set up signs in broken English to redirect traffic, fill the community with fine dust, ignore safety regulations, work unGodly hours and still we end up with second class work.

To ensure their lives are made easier, we have a system of government originally created to serve the people but forever prostate to the arrogance of Maltese contractors.

We elect politicians to serve us for five years but we live to tolerate brash, aggressive, self-centred so-called entrepreneurs who have turned this country into a scene from war torn Beirut.

The stark contrast between the Sliema and St Julian’s promenade to the Gzira, Msida and Pieta strand has nothing to do with affluence.

The communities of Sliema, St Julian’s and those of the Gzira and Msida coast road pay equal taxes, indeed the latter two probably pay more taxes.

Yet, because Nationalist MP’s depend so heavily on Sliema votes to get elected the amount of public money injected here has turned out to be disproportionate to the rest of the Island.

This subjective observation will have little or no effect on the way projects sway in the next four years.

During my lifetime the choice and siting of projects has consistently reflected the constituency of the Minister responsible for infrastructure. One hopes it will change with Minister Zammit.

Anyone who has walked the Gzira to Pietà pathway will come to terms with the fact that the views are by far the most spectacular.

Yet the broken paving, poor lighting, holes and endless litter confirms that these are constituencies forgotten. Relegated to second division.

It should never be so.