New faces, same old habits

When I began this series of blogs by writing about boomerangs, little did I know that the election campaign would end with a major boomerang which cut to bits and pieces the Nationalist Party’s strategy of presenting the election as a chance for Dr Gonzi to promote new faces to the cabinet.

Little did anyone know, for that matter, that Malta’s self-styled environmental champion in the form of PN MP and dentist Dr Jeffrey Pullicino Orlando, would end up being embroiled in an environmental scandal all of his own making which has basically put paid to the PN’s strategy of wooing the doubting voters by presenting them with so called new faces which they could vote for.

I say that the scandal is all of Dr Pullicino Orlando’s making because he only made it worse, very much worse himself, by the statements he has made since the scandal was revealed by Labour Leader, Dr Alfred Sant, last Saturday.

Last Saturday, a visibly agitated Dr Pullicino Orlando vehemently denied that he knew anything about the application, which was subsequently approved, for the development of a mega discotheque on his farmland in Mistra which has EU Natura 2000 status and is classified as fully protected and totally outside the development zones by MEPA, so much so that not even a water cistern can be built on it.

Since then, however, it has been revealed that the architect representing the developer who embarked on this deal with the tenant, to whom Dr Pullicino Orlando rented out his pristine land but has so far failed to name, wrote to the same Dr Pullicino Orlando as the owner of the land to inform him of the developer’s intentions.

Hence, if Dr Pullicino Orlando was really against this development he had every opportunity at that point, this is in Septmeber 2005, to tell the developer that he did not want such a development on his land. His antics at Mosta and at the PBS studios, where, mysteriously, he morphed from a dentist to a part-time farmer to a journalist, will not cancel out this simple basic fact.

The time for Dr Pullicino Orlando to object to the rape of Mistra was when he was informed by the developer’s architect in September 2005 not now. That is when his green credentials would have been tested and found sound. As it is his appeal for the application to be withdrawn now sounds very hollow and feeble indeed.

By the way, in the process, the land Dr Pullicino Orlando bought for LM 10,000 in 1999 is now worth LM 1 million given that MEPA has mysteriously and inexplicably approved the proposed commercial development, albeit as an outline development permit. What this means, to level headed people at least, is that the PN’s so called new faces are just as tainted with the old habits of the old faces that the PN strategists were trying so hard to keep out of sight and to replace by these so called new faces.

As it is, the PN now has nothing new to offer since even its new faces have fallen victim to old habits.