The call for a boycott of business interests owned by the Gasan and Tumas groups is one of the most foolish ideas I’ve come across in a long time.

First, it is completely unrealistic and can only fail miserably. The thing with large and diversified business groups is that they become part of the social and economic fabric – often in ways that are scarcely understood. It is simply too much to expect people to spend weeks researching exactly which of the products and services they buy are linked to Gasan or Tumas, and then to proceed to do without them. Boycotts can only work if they target very specific and easily-defined sectors.

Second, the two groups between them employ thousands of people, 99 per cent of who have no interest in towers whatsoever. Indeed, it is likely that a good chunk of them hold strong views about development that rather match those held by the champions of the boycott. To put those jobs at risk would be to punish the wrong people.

Third, I am not aware that Gasan or Tumas have done anything illegal or irregular on the Townsquare and Mrieħel fronts. What that means is that the call to boycott their business in particular is arbitrary and probably unfair. Why not also boycott the dozens of companies and individuals who are involved in all manner of unlovable construction all over Malta?

The fourth reason has to do with politics and strategy. Like all the grand statements about the rape of the country, cementification, Dubaification, Manhattanisation, barbarians at the gates, and so on, the call for an all-out guerilla war against big developers says everything and nothing at all. More worryingly, it diverts our attention from the heart of the matter.

Which is that the Townsquare hearing was seriously and fundamentally flawed. In this case it is the details that matter most, because they are highly consequential, damning and really quite astonishing.

The protagonist is Victor Axiak, a University professor, member of the Planning Authority (PA) board, chair of the Environment and Resources Authority (ERA) and man who has a lot of explaining to do. The facts as reported in last Sunday’s edition of this paper are as follows.

Due to health reasons, Axiak was not present at the PA board hearing on Townsquare. He did, however, send a memo to a fellow member of the board, Timmy Gambin. The memo, which no one except Gambin has actually seen, is reported to have described the Environment Impact Assessment (EIA) as a sham. When contacted by The Sunday Times of Malta, Axiak did not deny the memo or its reported content.

He did say, however, that he sent the memo to Gambin alone in order not to put “unfair and unjust pressure” on the other members of the board. He also said that he had full faith in the integrity of the PA board members, and refused to further discuss anything to do with the project. In which case we must have a one-sided conversation.

The first thing we need to establish is that an EIA is a vital, possibly the vital, piece of information on which PA decisions are based. EIAs cost would-be-developers thousands of euros in professional fees, and for good reason: they are carried out by teams of experts and produce detailed technical assessments of the likely impacts of proposed projects.

Axiak has no choice but to resign, or to explain what about the EIA was a sham and why he thought that that information was best kept between him and Gambin

In other words, and if his memo did indeed describe the EIA as a sham, Axiak is saying that he had reason to believe that the most important ingredient was rotten. The obvious thing for him to do would have been to submit this view to the board’s consideration.

Only he did nothing of the sort. Instead of sending a formal memo to the Chair, who would have been obliged to read it out, Axiak sent it to Gambin. And, being no stranger to procedure, Axiak most certainly knew that Gambin had no such obligation. I have never seen such a spectacular or consequential case of wrong address.

It gets worse. Axiak said that he sent the memo to Gambin in order not to put unfair pressure on the other board members. There are at least two reasons why this is mind-bending. First, an expert opinion is not unfair pressure. On the contrary, it is the duty of board members to share their expert opinions with their colleagues – especially when those colleagues are, in Axiak’s words, “people of integrity” and therefore unlikely to mistake an opinion for pressure.

Second, why did Axiak think that it was not right for him to put unfair pressure on the other members of the board, but perfectly fine to put unfair pressure on one of them (Gambin)? Or did he just pass the buck to Gambin by letting him decide whether or not to read out the memo and put unfair pressure?

Be that as it may, Axiak has no choice but to resign, or to explain what about the EIA was a sham and why he thought that that information was best kept between him and Gambin. Either way, the legitimacy of the Townsquare hearing will be put into question.

There’s another thing. Axiak’s (justified) absence on the day meant that a case of the highest importance ended up being discussed and voted on by a board that was missing one of its key members. Axiak has said that he had earlier made a request for members to be able to nominate a proxy to the board, and I believe him.

The point is far from minor, because Axiak happens to be ERA’s man on the PA board. Through no fault of his this time, a major project was approved without the input of the ERA. Last April’s much-criticised demerger between planning (the PA) and the environment (ERA) is beginning to produce some very bizarre results indeed.

We – the public I mean – need to get to the bottom of what exactly happened on August 4, and why. It’s on such minor details that major planning decisions, and the future of the spaces we live in, hinge.

mafalzon@hotmail.com

Sign up to our free newsletters

Get the best updates straight to your inbox:
Please select at least one mailing list.

You can unsubscribe at any time by clicking the link in the footer of our emails. We use Mailchimp as our marketing platform. By subscribing, you acknowledge that your information will be transferred to Mailchimp for processing.