Martin Scicluna, head of the commission which awarded ‘university’ accreditation to a college owned by a Jordanian land speculator in Żonqor, went personal and sank very low indeed calling me names in his article of July 20. If any is needed, this is proof enough that Scicluna lost the argument before he even started writing.
I will not go personal in Scicluna’s regard; I will just comment on his dealings with the Sadeen Żonqor college and let the facts speak for themselves.
What should interest readers is not the personal slanging-match Scicluna seems to want to engage in but an analysis of the inconsistencies between his own exhortations in 2013 to vote Labour for good governance and what has happened since, with very special reference to the Sadeen college of land speculation in Żonqor which Scicluna has dignified with accreditation as a ‘university’.
In Malta, we are supposed to have an independent institution which decides whether a college can call itself a ‘university’. But in the Żonqor case, that decision was taken immediately by the Prime Minister himself in a meeting of just a few minutes with Jordanian property speculator Sadeen.
A Prime Minister, who after five full months has decided to do absolute zilch about the huge international Panama scandal engulfing his two closest and long-time associates, made that decision in all of five minutes.
It was Sadeen himself who boasted that his huge powers of persuasion secured for him a large tract of virgin land in Żonqor and the name ‘university’ in minutes. Then we saw Sadeen’s associate with his antics and wild gestures during the signing ceremony at the Office of the Prime Minister behaving precisely like a land speculator who owned the Auberge de Castille, not just Żonqor.
If it was not enough for the Prime Minister to immediately designate Sadeen’s college a ‘university’, the government then issued a legal notice lowering the criteria for the accreditation of any applicant college as a university.
While we bemoan the quality of education in Malta with every Sec and Matsec examination report, the government lowers the criteria for higher education to specifically serve a land speculator.
In the last general election, Scicluna instructed us to vote Labour for good governance which means, among other things, independent institutions, improvement of standards, and impartiality. But that was three long years ago, not five minutes.
Din l-Art Ħelwa termed the Żonqor consultation ‘a sham’, as its former president Martin Scicluna was busy dignifying Sadeen college as a ‘university’
Hey presto, Scicluna and the commission he chaired then rubber-stamped the Prime Minister’s decision for land speculator Sadeen to be able to market his Żonqor land grab as a ‘university’.
Scicluna made a long-winded defence of his decision on July 20. But facts are facts. In the US, no one is allowed to call any college ‘American University of’ wherever.
In Britain, in 2013, the BBC easily enrolled a dog called Pete at the ‘American University of London’ in all of fourdays. The ‘university’ never checked the identity of the dog and soon after enrollment offered it a MBA degree against a payment of £4,500.
The BBC’s investigative news programme Newsnight duly showed Pete the dog wearing a graduation hat and holding his newly acquired MBA degree parchment from the ‘American University of London’. In its analysis, the BBC showed quite clearly that many outfits calling themselves ‘American University of’ wherever are none other than sale of degree sham ‘universities’.
Scicluna also happens to promote himself as a true environmentalist. He was president and vice-president of Din l-Art Ħelwa from 2001 till 2013. What about the environmental implications of the Sadeen college of land speculation at Żonqor?
I need only quote Din l-Art Ħelwa about the Żonqor land grab: “Din l-Art Ħelwa objects strongly to the government’s proposal to grant land to contractors to build an educational establishment in an area outside the development zone at Żonqor Point.” And later: “Din l-Art Ħelwa is strongly disappointed by the Prime Minister’s statement that a new university is still to be built at Żonqor. The public consultation exercise to identify alternative sites seems to have been just a sham, as the site was already chosen.”
In other statements, Din l-Art Ħelwa noted “the government’s determination to destroy what is left of our countryside and coast”. They also said: “Our countryside is besieged not just by our local developers, as if these were not enough, but now by foreign ones as well.”
‘Objects strongly’, ‘sham’, ‘destroy strong words indeed from Din l-Art Ħelwa. But its former president and vice-president Scicluna was busy exalting the Żonqor land grab and ODZ speculation with the term ‘university’.
And it is speculation. A true university would not need open sea views and a place for a marina. What you see is what you get: a land speculator insisting for a large tract of virgin land with open sea views is precisely that. And it is speculation on the cheap.
The speculator would want ODZ land precisely because it is valued cheaply and can be obtained for peanuts from an obliging government after that hugely important five-minute meeting with the Prime Minister.
Not to mention the strong stench of corruption, the haste of it all, the hardheaded insistence of the government to destroy Żonqor, and the rubber-stamping by puppet institutions. But corruption would take much more than an article.
This is what Scicluna keeps defending: the Żonqor college of land speculationby Sadeen.
No amount of name calling on his part and going personal even on my publications will erase one iota of the huge inconsistencies between Scicluna’s very nice words in 2013 about good governance and what he has been accomplice to in these three years of – in his own words about the government he told us to vote for – “patronage”, “plunder” and “corruption that has engulfed the government”.