Wanted: Ministry for the Appeasement of Blackmailers

'Paradise' is not a huge villa. Nor is it a fully-detached residence. But it does have a number of other things going for it. First - the parking situation. In a country with congested roads where parking slots are notoriously hard to come by, thousands of residents would gladly sacrifice a room for the blissful experience of being able to park close to home.

Whoever lives in 'Paradise' doesn't have to give up his porch. Parking places are available close by. Then there's the view. It's beautiful. The golden hills of Gozo shimmer gently in the distance while a smooth expanse of blue sea rolls on to the curved inlet a stone's throw away from the door.

There's no smog or fumes belched out by cars here - just the fresh tang of sea spray and the fragrance of wild thyme. Walking in the area is pleasant. Wander away from the recently tarmacked square and houses next to 'Paradise' and onto countryside paths bordered with rubble walls and trees.

It's no wonder that the owners of 'Paradise' and their neighbours feel quite possessive about their houses and don't want anyone butting in on their idyll. One of them has put up a notice warning anyone caught on site that he will be prosecuted. That's ironic. Here is someone threatening to bring down the full force of the law on anybody infringing 'his' space, when he has illegally squatted on public property. For 'Paradise' and the houses in the vicinity are all illegal.

They form the Armier shanty town - a settlement which has never been sanctioned by the Malta Environment and Planning Authority and which is built entirely on land which does not belong to those warning others to keep out.

Oh, and it's also the Squatters' City looked upon so kindly by Lawrence Gonzi of "I will personally reform Mepa" fame. At approximately the same time as the Prime Minister was promising that he would be Gonzi the Green and that he would do away with the environmental deficit, he was also reassuring people who had appropriated public property that their permit-less pre-1992 beach houses would not be demolished.

While environmentalists were feeling warm and fuzzy at the prospect of a sincere Prime Minister who would promote the green agenda in a just and transparent manner, he was busy telling the squatters that within six months of re-election he would consult with Mepa about plans for an even bigger village.

If that was not reward enough for having broken the law for at least a decade, Gonzi pledged to give the boathouse owners legal title to the land in question. Newspaper reports state that the boathouse owners would have to pay some Lm100 (€233) a year for this - the cost of a weekend stay at a four-star hotel in Gozo. I wonder how this figure was reached. Did the Nationalist number-crunchers refer to the risible fine meted out to the illegally-developed Solemar Hotel across the bay?

Or perhaps, the ministers involved were toying about with notions of 'social justice' and thought that the boat-house owners couldn't afford more? That might be it. Having to pay more for their house by the sea might not allow the owners enough cash to fill up the 4X4s or boats parked outside.

I'm not going to delve deeper into the implications of this pathetic pre-election ploy and its effect on Gonzi's credibility. This was very well-put by the sidelined minister George Pullicino when he was commenting about this situation in 2001.

In an interview with Miriam Dunn he had said: "Successive governments have been harshly criticised for not being effective at enforcing the law at Armier. This site is by far the largest single area in the Maltese Islands where illegal development has been carried out on a massive scale. It is also a matter of illegal occupation of land owned by the government. If the government did not deal with the Armier illegality, then it would have been criticised for not putting its own house in order and of not having enough courage to deal with the larger problems."

I find myself in the unusual situation of agreeing completely with Minister Pullicino. He summed up precisely why governments should not be creeping around giving out pre-election goodie bags to those who have broken the law. However, neither he nor anybody else from government has come up with a good enough reason for acceding to the Armier boathouse owners' request.

Is it purely a craven reaction to a group which threatens to withhold its votes or financial support come election? If that's it, then how will the government react when faced with applications for top-end bungalows on the other side of the Mellieħa ridge?

If it has rewarded law-breaking by one particular group, why not reward everybody else? Why not dish out petrol coupons to people with parking tickets? What about a home makeover for people caught dumping? Why not set up a Ministry for the Appeasement of Blackmailers? Does that sound ridiculous? Maybe. Just not as absurd as a Prime Minister pledging to clamp down on environmental infringements and condoning them himself.

cl.bon@nextgen.net.mt