Mepa’s failure in its environmental responsibility started from day one. Barely a week from the ‘merger’ with the Environment Department, in 2001, I was told in a joking vein: “Forget about the environment; it is development which dictates here.”

And so it was to be. And so it is today. Honouring national and international environmental obligations, which Mepa never understood or wanted to understand, seemed like trying to swim up the Niagara Falls. Eventually, the environment became Mepa’s Cinderella, leading to its present state of a headless mummy in limbo.

After two years in government, it has now been thought appropriate to resuscitate the mummy. Despite being an electoral promise, the move is accompanied by a lot of fanfare and publicity, and this raises more questions than answers. Is it to hide past failures and the procrastination in making the move? Is it to distract from the fact that the environment has been kept out of the portfolio of the Minister for the Environment but is in that of the Prime Minster?

Is it to make up for the environmental degradation which also saw the Environment Directorate degenerate into a headless Cinderella? Is it just meant for that part of the electorate who can be convinced that a circle is square?

To consolidate its complete disregard for the environment, on its death bed Mepa forwarded a report to the Prime Minister suggesting that Żonqor was the best site for the university development. The report completely ignored the Environment Directorate, its acting director (no director since change of government) and the Mepa board too.

Mepa has stooped so low, with such farcical, unprofessional behaviour along the years, that it has lost all credibility. It is in need of a new image to “secure better planning”!

Is the colourful publicity and change of name merely dressing the old wolf in new sheep’s clothing? Many already see the Executive Council referred to in the new Bills as already running, as evidenced by the Żonqor report. It seems that the rape will go on, until there is nothing left to rape.

As advertised, Mepa will be no more, and will only be remembered in history books, especially for its complete environmental failures. Few will shed a tear.

I won’t. I have gone through the new environment Bill, an exercise undertaken by a parliamentary secretary in the Office of the Prime Minister. The Bill transposes all the environmental provisions from the Mepa Act (except for some ‘overlooked touches’ a cut and paste exercise to ensure that the EU environment aquis obligations are all there.

If the new Environment Act is to put the environment high on the agenda, why was it not possible to achieve such aims with the same legal provisions as when it is the responsibility of the Prime Minister? Is all this fanfare a confirmation of failure? Mepa has been declared a monster, without any political control, when as everybody knows it functions by political nods, as one concludes from a rationalised Żonqor Point.

I honestly believe that the Minster for the Environment, Leo Brincat, can administer the environment on professional lines. Perhaps this is why he has been kept away from environmental responsibility, and Mepa, the environment and all are still not in his portfolio. It is nice to have someone to shield the blows though!

One now hopes the minister won’t be given a ‘promotion’ and be replaced by someone whose main qualification will be to convince us that he is ‘balancing’ environment and planning, naturally in the ‘national interest’. This would only result in handing over the mummified, headless Cinderella from limbo, nicely adorned as a skeleton on a string and controlled by the Executive Council.

What trust can one have in the headless skeleton, resuscitated and dressed as an Environmental Authority? In the absence of such trust, which is not easy to re-establish, it is very difficult to believe everything that is being said.

Those who yearn for a better future, better social well-being, a better environmental home, have to fasten their seatbelts. We are all in for a rough ride.

I sincerely wish all the good luck to the Environment Minister, who will need all the help he can get from genuine individuals and social entities, especially from the political field.

Unfortunately, though, he will have a lot of bones to pick.

aebaldacchino@gmail.com

Alfred Baldacchino is a former assistant director of Mepa’s environment directorate.

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