It was a mistake and the reaction was genuine enough to believe that it was. A spokesman for the Milan architectural firm that mistakenly revealed the plans being considered by the government for a real estate project in Qala was very candid: “This was an internal mistake which has created a big mess.”
Someone in Milan is probably out looking for a job right now but our superstar Prime Minister, who is responsible for this, is sticking to his.
He doesn’t think there is anything to the Qala development. “What’s the fuss,” he asked. Cool really doesn’t become him because he just doesn’t have it. There are many things wrong with this.
Nationalist Party leader Simon Busuttil was right last weekend when he said that every Labour project has to be studied for its true motives. The motives behind Qala are bound to emerge at one point although, this time around, with the location being Gozo, it might take longer because omertà reigns supreme there.
Gozitans don’t speak up unless the government owes you money for public works you should never have done.
In that case, omertà is thrown to the wind, Labour would call you a whistleblower and overnight you are turned into a national Labour hero.
That first-ever whistleblower from Gozo now joins the other heroes in Labour’s hall of fame that includes, among others, that fraudster Manwel Dimech and, more recently, Cyrus Engerer.
How happy the PN must be to have rid of Engerer and how proud that whistleblower should be branded a “self-confessed crook” by the PN leader.
The terms of reference for a cruise liner terminal did not include real estate but it is there all over the place because of greed or because building apartments and villas may be the only way it would be financially viable, the cruise terminal being just an expense.
There was just one submission for this dubious project. Naturally, the consortium behind it won’t say a word. Labour finds natural allies in Gozo, doesn’t it?
There is also that other little, tiny detail that the Qala location is part of the EU Natura 2000 network, a marine conservation area (loosely translated, an ODZ seabed). But who cares for that when you’re Labour and out to ransack a country that does not belong to you but only erroneously entrusted in your care.
Everything the government says is suspect and it should be so
The Prime Minister does not appear to be too concerned about Natura 2000, the marine life off Qala, EU directives and the damage the building of a terminal could cause. The only issue that seems to concern him is “accessibility”. That means building more roads.
The Qala bombshell may be a storm in a teacup and that things may be as innocent as the Prime Minister makes them sound. The project may not even happen.
But with Labour there is always that nagging feeling that there is something else, that “unknown unknown”, as that graceless Donald Rumsfeld once famously put it.
There may be obligations that need to be honoured. Labour MP Marlene Farrugia spoke of those in one of her rants. She really should have known much better what the degenerate party she still embraces was up to before the election.
Maybe, instead of challenging the Archbishop of Malta on ODZ development, a position that is already known, Farrugia should make a similar call on the Gozo Bishop, who she should know runs a separate diocese. The Gozo Curia reportedly owns land exactly where the Qala land speculation project is located.
As a firm in Milan erroneously boasts of how it plans to develop 220,000 square metres of Gozitan coastline next year, our Prime Minister tells us that he cannot understand all the fuss because – wait for it – his government’s privatisation unit was still negotiating and that no decisions have been taken. The Milan architectural firm thinks the talks are so ahead that the project would start next year.
This Prime Minister has to stop treating people as stupid serfs and behaving like he is running a fiefdom.
That so-called privatisation unit was the same body that last year came up with the incredible proposal to build three hotels on pristine land between Marsascala and Smart City, all land outside the development zone.
That idea didn’t get off the ground and, very soon after, the Prime Minister offered exactly that same land to a Jordanian real estate developer to venture into new, fresh pastures (not fresh for long) and enter the commercial university business.
Being ever accommodating to anything that sounds grand and glitzy – what an inferiority complex Labour must have – our benevolent Prime Minister even lowered the standards for university accreditation to cater for this Jordanian who reportedly took the decision to locate here in a split of second.
Now it emerges that he did not have much choice because he got nowhere in Spain. That government privatisation unit must be so disappointed to see its grandiose hotel plans for the needy south of Malta dashed in this way, although they do have the consolation that this kind Jordanian who is prepared to ruin Żonqor Point is more of a hotelier than an academic.
The planning authority has disassociated itself from the choice of the Qala site for this so-called terminal but that is little consolation. Given that it was that same authority that came up with Żonqor for a pseudo-university, the odds are that, had it been asked to suggest a site for a terminal in Gozo, it would have come up with Dwejra, with the inland sea serving as a yacht marina and the General’s Rock a disembarkation spot for cruise liners.
To be fair, Mepa would not have suggested real estate development at Dwejra because it has been going on for a long time there, under its watch.
Yes, that low is public expectation from an authority paid from taxpayer money to protect the environment.
The Qala project is already going wrong because, as is always with Labour, it is shrouded in secrecy. Things have gotten out of hand for this government just half way through its legislature. Everything it says is suspect and it should be so.
No one knows what is really happening in this country, except for maybe the Prime Minister who has a list of infantile mega projects up his sleeve that seem to impress him but no one else.
This country is just being plundered.