The role of the Privatisation Unit, properly speaking, is to identify and facilitate the areas of government, or government-owned enterprise, that can be freed from the clutches of pencil-pushers and bean-counters and left for private enterprise to grow.

The idea certainly never was for the Unit to identify swathes of land that can be made available to developers to build concrete monstrosities on, for the greater glorification of their property portfolios and their wallets.

I forget, if you take the Malta Developers Association at their word, they are not bloated plutorcrats poised to engulf and devour, they are earnest enthusiasts in it only for the love of their hobby.

I, for one, believe them without any reservations. These are men whose hobby is making money, whose only love is construction and whose fervent desire is not to rest until they get their way, completely and utterly, and the country is covered over with nondescript boxes to be rented out to, or bought by, us, the Great Unwashed.

So, yes, of course, the developers are not in for the money, in and of itself, they are in it to satisfy their slavering thirst, their one and only true and honest ambition, to demonstrate their love for the country and their unwavering respect for the environment.

Such is their undying love for the land that they want it protected from the ravages of the weather by putting buildings up on it, to take away the effect of the wind and the rain and the sun and the wind and the pattering of animals' feet and the tramp of ramblers, and remain untouched under as many cubic meters of cement as possible.

These heroes, the truly valiant defenders of the country and its side, are so desperate to get the work done that they'll even sell off such parts of their property that they themselves can't afford to develop and let the buyer get on with the work even before the contract is signed and the money for the land paid over.

That, folks, is true altruism, and when you add in to that specific mix of valour the fact that you even lend (no doubt for free) your own valuable machinery and men to help carry out the work, then it's time that the scholar and gentleman concerned was given a gong, not hounded by newspapers trying to besmirch the family escutcheon.