Minister Konrad Mizzi can rest assured that he has the support of all men and women of good faith if he continues digging to find the whole truth about the concrete debacle at Mater Dei. He has also everybody’s support for his efforts to secure compensation for the hefty bill that has to be paid by Maltese taxpayers. The sum of €30 million which was mentioned in the media is no mean sum.

Working on the Mater Dei projects there were contractors, subcontractors, quality controllers, periti, engineers, works managers and a whole battery of ‘professionals’ whose job was to deliver load of concrete according to specifications. They were all paid good money to produce good work.

It now transpires that some got good money for delivering bad work.

This is awful, scandalous and disgusting. All efforts should be made to uncover the culprits and their corrupt way of doing things. From what has been published so far, this is not a question of a structure built to support two levels which, quite rightly, should not be expected to support three or four levels. We have been told that this is a tragedy of contractors committing themselves to provide concrete of a particular strength who somehow it turned out that some of the concrete that reached Mater Dei was of a lower grade.

One now waits for the results of the inquest that is being held. The sooner, quite naturally, the better. The more transparent its way of working the greater its credibility. But more than anything else it is essential that the results will not be perceived to be tainted in one way or other. I trust that this will not be the case.

This is not acceptable and the guilty must pay. If the inquest finds that some people deliberately delivered concrete of a lower grade then such people are thieves of the worst kind. They were paid for what they did not do and they risked human lives in the process.

It is positive to note that the hospital structures do not pose any immediate danger. People’s mind should be put to rest by that statement. This is not enough. Everything should be done so that the hospital will be really earthquake proof as it was designed and commissioned to be.