A fat cat’s bordello of an amnesty

The Labour government is seeking a ‘win-win situation’: one from which both the state and planning abusers will benefit.

It wants to raise income from fines while giving abusers the possibility of getting what they always craved for: a planning permit which gives them the right to sell on the market and to carry out modifications to their properties. In this way abusers will probably make enough money to pay the fine and make some extra profit on top of it.

People with illegal developments will suddenly discover that they are sitting on a pot of gold. They will have to share their pot with the state, which will become a partner in their theft.

Social and environmental justice demands that abusers are penalised and not rewarded. This is a principle which no money can buy. 

It is true that previous Nationalist governments simply left cases of abuse accumulate. I have spent 20 years of my life fighting against these abuses. But that should never justify a scheme which institutionalises abuse by making the illegal legal.

Surely one understands situations where people with minor illegalities in their own homes are granted protection from pending enforcements. 

But the government cannot renounce the principle that illegalities have to be removed before a full planning permit is issued.

As it stands the law already allows government to stop MEPA from carrying out enforcements in cases of minor irregularities. In fact before the general election a legal notice was introduced to exempt a number of developments (like buildings protruding in to pavements and irregularities in the way internal yards were build) from enforcement. 

But the present law does not foresee making these properties legal and does not allow their owners to put them back on the legal market. In this way, according to the present law nobody can speculate over illegal property. If the government has its way past illegalities will be handed over to land speculators.

The most shocking aspect of the government’s proposal is that it is not just limited to buildings within development zones and also applies to illegalities in ODZ areas carried out before 1994.

If the government really means business about ODZ illegalities it should simply make the daily fines retroactive to cases dating back before 2012. When abuse persists it should simply enforce the law. 

What the government is proposing is simply to institutionalise the land-grabbing of the past. Moreover, the socialist government it is putting a price tag on illegality. The message the government is sending is that if you have money you can legalise your illegality. In this way the rich not only can buy their way back to legality but also may even make an additional buck by selling their previously illegal properties at a price greater than the fine paid.

Labour is continuing with its policy of evading hard choices in fiscal policy by creating money spinning schemes which risk turning Malta into a fat cat’s bordello.

The amnesty will not only certify the Labour government’s complete lack of environmental credentials but shows how skewed is its concept of justice.