After all, the bully got his way

Charles Polidano, known as Iċ-Ċaqnu, can finally play in his knights-era tower and zoo at Montekristo Estate, his mind at rest no one will bother him.

Once dubbed by the Planning Authority as “Malta’s largest illegally developed sites”, Montekristo Estate has now received the stamp of legality after two decades of blatant rule-breaking.

There will not be a repeat of the 2013 saga when PA enforcement officials turned up in force at the Polidano Group’s sprawling estate to demolish illegally-built structures. It was one the boldest moves the PA had ever made. It all fizzled away.

On that day, Polidano sent his workers home, blocked the entrance to the area with construction trucks and asked the courts to stop the enforcement process.

Hours later, Polidano sent a letter of apology to then Prime Minister Joseph Muscat, insisting he did not want to escalate matters further and committed himself to remove the illegal structures. He never did.

Roll forward a full 12 years from that fateful day and last week the PA gave Polidano its blessing for all the illegal development on the Montekristo Estate in Ħal Farruġ. It was an exercise of total forgiveness.

The construction magnate, who has repeatedly over the years threatened to make his workforce redundant—he did so under both Nationalist and Labour administrations—whenever the authorities attempted to move against him, finally got what he wanted.

Polidano’s tactics worked. He bullied, cajoled and massaged politicians in equal measure. In a twisted power game, he first spat on politicians and later gave in until he had them eating out of his hand. It is disgusting.

Polidano embodies the meaning of impunity and the mentality that it’s OK to ‘build now, sanction later’, a practice, politicians have been unwilling to clamp down on. The planning loophole that allows a person to build illegally and later stall enforcement by applying for sanctioning continues to exist.

In a carefully curated statement issued by the Polidano Group after the PA approved the permit, a company spokesperson was quoted saying: “While Montekristo Estate was conceived with the best of intentions as a centrepiece for the best of Maltese agriculture and craftsmanship, we acknowledge that our approach to planning regulations should have been better.”

Polidano was trying to atone for his mistakes by acknowledging in the meekest way possible that the company’s approach to planning rules ‘should have been better’, describing the illegalities as ‘deviations’.

Even in redemption, Polidano tried to insult every ordinary person’s intelligence and make a mockery of the institutions. What he did at Montekristo was not a minor misdemeanour that could warrant words such as ‘should have been better’. No, what he created was a legacy of unchecked illegalities, ignoring enforcement orders, putting up his middle finger and plain bullying.

But Ċaqnu’s audacity is only part of the problem. The bigger concern is the willingness of bureaucrats and their political masters to accept, encourage and close an eye to such behaviour. They allowed the illegalities at Montekristo to grow exponentially until they became too huge to dismantle—removing them would have probably resulted in a bigger mess. To atone, Polidano was slapped with what was described by the PA as a “contribution” of €1.8 million.

Polidano called the €1.8 million ‘contribution’ a “high price” to pay for past sins but one the company was willing to go along with.

Should we stand in awe at such benevolence? Less than a €2 million price tag to atone for years of impunity is peanuts for someone who has been raking in hundreds of millions of euros from public contracts.

The next couple of cheques, Polidano will receive from the government for its work on the €35 million Msida Creek project, can go to settle the ‘contribution’. He can then go to Montekristo and from his tower play Bob Marley’s Redemption Song while horsing around with politicians as they grovel at his feet.

We suggest that Polidano name the internal pathways and squares at Montekristo Estate after every prime minister, and minister responsible for planning, as a sign of gratitude. At least, ordinary folk visiting the place would remember how obscene and unfair the system is.