Downsizing the construction industry big time

Beyond lax safety and enforcement, the greed and obsession to cement Malta is the root to many of our problems. 

As former Labour prime minister Joseph Muscat addressed a sizeable crowd endorsing Alex Agius Saliba (known to his followers as ‘Thunder’) for the next European Parliament election, very few would have realised that Muscat was taking a break from his dalliance with big business predominantly active in the construction industry.   

His followers who espouse a socialist creed are oblivious to the fact that their icon is now not only part of the establishment of capitalists but drinking from their font of construction bounty without any sense of remorse. 

Muscat is of course playing Russian roulette, teasing, and leaving everyone on his toes what will he do next. At the back of his mind is a magisterial inquiry. In truth, his half a million euro income (declared) as a consultant dwarfs the income of an MEP. 

Muscat is no Enzo Tortora, he is only accused in public but not in court and until we ponder on this, it is correct to point out that he faces no criminal charges yet. 

He is on the other hand a very capable orator and a hero for the Labour voter who still see in Muscat someone who unchained them from their long period in opposition with his spectacular election victory in 2013.  But to many others who voted for the PL he is the politician who let them down and allowed others to get away with murder (in the real sense). 

But back to Muscat’s clients and one of his most notorious ones – Michael Stivala. 

Stivala is president of the Malta Development Association. The MDA was founded by Sandro Chetcuti, a speculator in his own right, who still controls the MDA despite occupying no post - Chetcuti’s  young son is CEO of MDA. Furthermore, it is Sandro who dances around Muscat as if he were his prince and he his ambassador. Truth be told, Chetcuti pushes Stivala.  In turn, Stivala is proud to have Muscat as his consultant even though in his heart of hearts he remains a Nationalist. 

By no means is Muscat the only person to benefit from the construction industry but he is the person who refined the planning rules to give this industry a green light to expand its horizon and literally pillage the island of Malta and Gozo.   

It was like unleashing the living dead. In a very brief period, Malta and Gozo were turned into a massive building site as we started reliving the peaks of the construction frenzy in 1966, 1980 and 1994. What has happened is that the construction industry has made the rich, richer, and created new players who became rich in their own right.   

But all this greed has come at a great expense. Malta looks shabby, ugly, and less authentic. 

The rate of development is so fast that there is no haven to escape to. The construction industry is no longer feeding Maltese families but foreign families who sustain the workforce. And more construction brings more strain on our quarries, our roads, our infrastructure, our energy, and water systems and last but not least our natural environment. 

To feed this cancer we have kept the body alive filling it with more people and more projects. The sky is the limit.  

And because the construction magnates employ and sustain so many politicians as part-time consultants, even a few cheeky ones who profess that the industry controls politicians, there is little or no chance for the political class to confront the excesses of this industry. 

Which is why the changes that needed to be introduced at the place of work were never implemented. 

Jean Paul Sofia, the young man who died when a building under construction collapsed, became a symbol of the victims of this building greed only because of his mother’s resilience. Without Isabelle Bonnici we would not be discussing this issue with such intensity. 

Others who did not have a mother to fight for them were quickly forgotten and catapulted into obscurity.  

The one thing the Sofia Inquiry led by Joseph Zammit McKeon did not say is that the amount of construction taking place on these islands is simply too much to handle for the understaffed agencies and executive arms.   

If you want to control firearms, you control how to acquire firearms and there are other analogies. 

The other consideration is that the building industry needs to slow down, even if it means recalibrating our growth. 

The other concern is the issue of greed. 

Beyond the immediate concerns emanating from the Jean Paul Sofia inquiry, there is also a very loud and clear message that this industry needs to be repackaged and downsized for everyone’s good. 

That will not happen with the Joseph Muscats of this world, fixated on their neo-liberal economic policies. But it could happen with a visionary political leader who sees the long-term gains of injecting a sense of proportionality and serenity in this industry for the good of everyone but especially in the interests of those who want to continue living here.