Rewarding illegality is an affront to fairness and basic decency

Government’s decision to offer compensation money to those who suffered losses because of Storm Harry is praiseworthy. What is not laudable, however, is the blanket manner by which such compensation was going to be dished out. 

The criteria to be eligible for compensation are unclear, which makes the exercise seem like a pre-election giveaway to placate pockets of people at taxpayer’s expense. 

Former prime minister Alfred Sant raised a pertinent point when he questioned whether those who failed to take out an insurance policy on their property should be treated at par with those who did bother to safeguard their investment. Given the extraordinary circumstances, the government should step in where insurances fail to step up. It should also consider propping up individuals and businesses, who were refused insurance for reasons that have nothing to do with illegality. 

However, what is very clear in the mind of right-thinking ordinary individuals is that taxpayer money should in no way, shape and form be used to compensate individuals and businesses for storm damages caused to illegal structures. It is unfair to the many others who bothered to play by the rules all their life. 

Treating everyone equally, irrespective of their circumstances is not fairness but a warped version of justice that makes a mockery of the rule of law. It is no wonder that Prime Minister Robert Abela’s declaration that everyone would be eligible to claim storm compensation, including those who had illegal structures washed away, was met with disbelief and anger. The backlash was palpable and justified. 

The Chamber of Commerce captured the essence of this anger when it warned that extending public funding to businesses in breach of planning or building regulations undermines principles of good governance and the rule of law. Public funding, it argued, should support compliance rather than reward violations. 

The chamber was right in its concerns. Businesses that operate legally, pay taxes, and adhere to planning and safety standards should be recognised and protected. But treating compliant and non-compliant businesses on the same basis because of some warped interpretation of fairness, creates an uneven playing field and risks encouraging further disregard for planning and environmental regulations. 

The backlash does seem to have jigged things in government. The prime minister subsequently reset the parameters for compensation, saying that those with illegal structures will have one year to regularise their situation before being eligible for compensation. Essentially, what the latest iteration of the scheme means is that government will be subsidising part or all the fees incurred by those who seek regularisation. Once again, this is not fairness but a warped version of it. 

Unfortunately, the concept of fairness seems to fly over the Labour government’s head. The storm compensation ‘storm’ is but one of a series of decisions over the past years that undermine honest, ordinary citizens. 

We recall Robert Abela’s misguided statement during the COVID pandemic when, in the midst of that tumultuous period, said he would consider an amnesty for those who were fined for breaching public safety rules. We still have a planning amnesty waiting in parliament that makes no distinction between small-time planning digressions, where it may make social sense to regularise against a fee, and large commercial establishments that have flaunted the rules with abject impunity for years. We still have construction magnates, who have repeatedly broken planning laws, that continue to benefit from government contracts. 

These instances anger ordinary right-thinking individuals, who believe in honesty, fairness and the rule of law—values that are to be cherished and promoted, not least by the state. 

We expect politicians to stand up for what is fair, what is right. Politicians should remove the wool from in front of their eyes and stop pandering to entitled constituents, who believe they have a God-given right to break the law and expect to be compensated nonetheless like all the rest. We expect to hear what the Nationalist Party leader Alex Borg has to say about this and hope he has the decency to stand up for honest taxpayers. Silence is not an option. 

We appreciate the principled stands taken by Momentum and ADPD that those who built illegally should not be compensated. 

Rewarding illegality is not only unfair but corrupts society’s moral fibre. It blurs the distinction between right and wrong as defined by society’s rules and norms and sends the wrong message to our children and our youth. Malta deserves better from those who aspire to lead it. And this is not idealism but basic decency.