Predetermined

The latest twist in the Chambray saga cannot but disgust all those who believe that there is, must be, a correct way by which to run the affairs of this country. Beyond partisan controversy, which is normal and desirable in a democracy, we need to get things right, for the community not for a few individuals who always end up on the winning side, no matter how distorted their record.

When last week Parliament debated the new contract for Chambray laid out by the Gonzi administration, I could hardly believe what PN speakers said. To expect that hotels are needed in Gozo is an illusion they claimed. There is little future for tourism on that island, so why insist that the Chambray development should be lumbered with a hotel? Coupled with the statement made last year by the Minister for Gozo that industry there had no future, here was a sparkling vote of no confidence in the economic and social development of Malta's second island.

So the new deal approved by government MPs in Parliament last week converts Chambray into a major housing estate on a prime site which by all standards amounts to a heritage zone for all the country. The land involved, all owned by the state, has been transferred to a private developer for a song - this at a time when we are told that little more social housing can be built, because there is a lack of land. Chambray will become a housing estate for the very rich, on public land released by the government at social housing rates, if not less.

The whole project is one of a whole line of disasters that the Fenech Adami/Gonzi administrations have led us into. Delimara, the power station built to replace all other power stations and costing over Lm120 million - the huge cost overruns in building the airport; Busietta Gardens; the scandal over the bus ticketing contracts; the commissioning of the three Gozo Channel ships; the Air Malta purchase of RJ airliners and then the launching of the AzzurAir subsidiary; the Tal-Qroqq hospital with its spiralling costs; the sale of Mid-Med Bank to HSBC; the contracts entered into by the Auxiliary Workers Scheme and by the Foundation for Tomorrow's Schools; the purchase of Dar Malta in Brussels; the sale of part of Maltapost to New Zealand's postal corporation; the squandering of funds invested in the bankrupt port of Brindisi... the list goes on and on...

At Chambray, 12 years ago, Labour warned that the project to give the Chambray site over to the "developer" Memmo - projected by the PN as a property wizard who had performed miracles on the Cote d'Azur - was a crazy idea. There was nothing to show that Memmo could deliver; so why give him very cheaply an extremely preferential grip on the property, one which could easily be turned into a speculative tool? At the time, I tabled documentation in Parliament showing that the companies Memmo was fronting to negotiate with the government and clinch the deal were two-penny operations, with no substance to back them. Still, the PN government lurched headlong into the operation. One funny thing since then was that all the government's allies, including the right wing media, stayed silent as another disaster burgeoned.

Year in, year out, at Chambray a welter of half-finished buildings emerged on the summit of the hill. Year in year out, deadlines were missed. Memmo's trumpeted contacts plus development and financial skills never emerged. Eventually, the whole project ground to a halt. Only, the property wizard retained overall control over a prime site that had been passed to him for peanuts. When Labour was in government we were evaluating the available means by which to get the gentleman out, if need be by special legislation, and then move forward to clear the mess that had accumulated.

Since that time, as last week's parliamentary debate showed, the Gonzi/Fenech Adami administrations moved along different guidelines. Conveniently, their guidelines served to predetermine that the old winners would remain the new winners. The PN administration decreed that the private shareholders should sort themselves out and come up with one stakeholder who would then negotiate with the government. It was a recipe that on the surface sounds good, in practice was bound to allow the manipulators who had been responsible for the Chambray disaster to make piles of money. Memmo, who had prime responsibility for the whole imbroglio with the enthusiastic collusion of the PN government, swanned away from Malta with a Lm2 million cheque paid to release him from the project. Another person who is responsible for other Gozitan imbroglios under the PN - such as the purchase four days before the 1996 election of ships for Gozo Channel, that are today breaking that company's back - became kingmaker in the new deals being struck.

The Gozitan entrepreneur now leading the project is a worthy businessman. But the predetermined deal into which he was drawn does not make sense for Gozo and for the country as a whole. Following the Memmo disaster, the prime site at Chambray has been passed over for peanuts and is now ripe for a massive exercise in real estate speculation, something that is bleeding this country dry. And the "new" deal cancels the obligation to build a hotel in Chambray. If it is true that we do not need more hotels in Gozo, then why develop Chambray at all?

Best wishes for a Happy Christmas to the editor, staff and readers of The Times.