Future historians seeking to understand Malta’s political climate over the past two years will surely examine the newspapers of the day. Undoubtedly, one of the themes that will emerge is a relentless barrage of calls for more transparency. Slowly but surely, this is being established as a hallmark of this legislature.
A lack of transparency has been the topic of countless articles, letters, reports and leaders in the press and in the rest of the media. I have completely lost track of the number of items on this subject I have read, watched and heard in recent months. We seem to be living in a cloak-and-dagger conspiracy of secret documents, whispered conversations, backroom deals and compromised positions.
Most people really are not interested in all this rubbish. They just want to get on with their lives and can’t stand political wheeling-and-dealing.
I don’t blame them. Unfortunately, many are so disillusioned that they are wary of expressing any political opinions at all. Instead of feeling free to engage in healthy and open discussions about current events, they approach Maltese politics like they are waving garlic cloves at a vampire.
We have reached the stage where every deal is perceived as suspect, whether it is the gas power station, the sale of passports, the Valletta Monti, the Mrieħel towers, the public transport tender, the Żonqor university, Café Premier, Gaffarena, privatisation, visas, government appointments, salaries, Air Malta, China, Azerbaijan or Algeria.
The list just keeps growing longer and longer, like those endless woollen mufflers which were the only thing I ever learnt to knit. I could start a muffler, but once it got going I never quite understood how to get it off the knitting needles. If truth be told, I never took knitting mufflers that seriously, just as the government does not care much for publishing documents.
A call for more transparency was the impassioned cri du coeur of MP Marlene Farrugia, as she resigned from the Labour Party parliamentary group last week. Our future historians may well interpret this as a political landmark, confirming transparency as a central theme of these years.
It is also a landmark in another sense. Farrugia has her ears on the ground and listens to the public mood. Her resignation demonstrates, if proof were needed, that today the environment is an issue to be taken seriously. This was already evident in the national elections of 2008, and the environment was used as a battle cry in 2013. Unfortunately, environmental concerns were discarded by the government once the ballot boxes went back into storage after the election.
Since then, two environmental rallies have been organised in Valletta, one of which was the largest ever held, with over 3,000 people protesting against the decision to develop a big tract of countryside at Żonqor in Marsascala. In spite of the protest, the project is still going ahead on ODZ land, even if somewhat reduced.
People just want to get on with their lives and can’t stand political wheeling-and-dealing
Another milestone on the road to environmental destruction was the replacement of the Structure Plan earlier this year. Instead we now have a flimsy document, known as the SPED, which states that ODZ land can be developed if more feasible than available options in urban areas. Well, it is obviously cheaper, and therefore more feasible, to build on ODZ land where no permit should normally be given.
Żonqor and the SPED were both tackled by the Parliamentary Committee on the Environment and Development Planning, from which Farrugia had to resign as chairman once she chose to leave her parliamentary group. She had also requested that the Bills on the forthcoming Mepa demerger would be discussed in her committee, but this was refused.
Once the Bills came up in Parliament last week, she agreed with the Opposition that NGOs should nominate more independent members on the new Environment Authority board. She also agreed that the chairman of the authority should attend a parliamentary hearing before being appointed. Although this proposal is reflected in the PL electoral manifesto of 2013, the government refused it.
She had had enough and seems to have grabbed some notepaper and a pen, and written a letter of resignation to the Prime Minister, there and then. Since then, the Opposition and several NGOs have called on Joseph Muscat to keep her on as chairman of the parliamentary committee, but so far he has refused.
I must admit, when Farrugia had first decided to regularly invite NGOs to this committee, I was slightly sceptical as it was not entirely clear where this was going. I then attended a few sessions and found her manner of chairing, and the results that were achieved, to be decidedly positive. If nothing else, allowing civil society to participate in these meetings was fresh and encouraging. It gave a sense of transparency and participation.
The Mepa demerger laws, currently being discussed in Parliament, have turned into a major battleground. They have been widely criticised as laying the ground for a planning scenario that will hammer the final nails into the coffin of our environment. The government is mistaken to underestimate the strength of public disapproval, provoked by the disappearance of the last open spaces on these islands.
petracdingli@gmail.com