Michael Mercieca, Nationalist Party MEP candidate

The CEO of Infrastructure Malta, Fredrick Azzopardi, was reported in the Times of Malta as justifying illegal roadworks, claiming the work was deemed “very urgent”. This was stated in the presence of Transport Minister Ian Borg and at no point did the minister stop or correct Azzopardi, thus making himself part and parcel of the decision. This situation is, to say the least, most worrying and unacceptable.

Azzopardi admitted it was himself who took the decision to forge ahead with the works without first obtaining the necessary permits as he himself deemed that the circumstances allowed him to proceed. 

When any government-appointed official deems himself to have an authority to bypass any law or regulation, it simply signifies a total state of anarchy, defined as ‘a state of disorder due to absence or non-recognition of authority or other controlling systems’.

The EU Parliament should set up enforcement offices to ensure that no government can use EU funds without consulting its people

To add insult to injury, not only did Azzopardi, as a government official, take a decision to break the law, but he also has the arrogance of objecting to paying the fine stipulated by law for breaking the same law. Not only does he think he has the authority to break the law, but he also thinks he has the right not to be penalised for taking illegal actions. 

This is not the only case where the government feels it enjoys impunity. We have seen a similar case by Infrastructure Malta in other projects, including the road widening at Tal-Balal. 

We have seen how the government has changed tendering procedures to accommodate a particular contractor to be awarded cleaning works at St Vincent de Paul Residence. We have seen how the government manipulated the sale of three hospitals against all normal tendering/sales procedures such that an unknown company made an overnight profit of €50 million. And the list goes on.

This attitude is one of the main reasons why I decided to re-enter politics and contest the coming MEP elections on the PN ticket. It is this attitude that makes me want to become an MEP – to be part of the European Parliament to ensure that the EU does not allow any government to forge ahead with anarchy. 

It is why I would insist that the EU Parliament set up enforcement offices in each EU country with experts from outside that same country – to ensure that no government can use EU funds without consulting its people and without any  controls whatsoever. This is why, in the coming May elections, we should all vote in favour of all PN candidates, sending a clear message to the EU that the Maltese people have had enough of this government. Control measures to safeguard all our interests should fall into place immediately.

Anthony Buttigieg, Democratic Party MEP candidate

The question asked poses three subsidiary ones. Is the mass construction of new road lanes and roads really necessary in the long term? Is there any true national urgency in building them without going through the normal process? Can sacrificing the rule of law ever be justified?

When Transport Minister Ian Borg was given a mandate to spend €700 million in improving our road network, I wrote an article querying whether it will be ultimately successful in improving the traffic situation, likening him to King Canute who thought he could stop the tide. 

The current government’s economic vision envisages that our population will increase by 50 per cent, obviously traffic will increase accordingly. We just don’t have enough road lanes to deal with that, and even less land to accommodate them. That money should have been spent on planning a viable mass transport network. Unless we think outside the box, like King Canute, our economy will drown in gridlock. 

In truth, there is urgency, and how. That urgency is the electoral cycle. Labour needs the roads ready as they have been caught out. Permanent traffic jams can be a powerful vote loser. They want to reduce traffic congestion caused by the sudden increase in population they have encouraged and that they need to feed the construction industry and the corporate profits of their friends – an increase in population they have just not planned adequately for. 

Frederick Azzopardi dares to break or bend the law because this government and its cronies dare to do the same, time and again

Planning, if done properly, may take decades and may lead to a different government completing the project. That would appear to be anathema to the PL.

Frederick Azzopardi’s attitude that necessity and urgency justify breaking the law, and the law is being broken, is a reflection of the current culture in this country where any means justify the ends. The insatiable desire to increase the gross domestic product and push development has left too many victims, like road kill, on the wayside. 

Casualties of this are: (a) our health, with the poor air quality from traffic and construction; (b) people losing productive land to roads that move the congestion only as far as the next bottleneck; and (c) the increase in poverty and homelessness due to an economy designed by a so-called social-democrat party that is not working for us, but on the contrary – increasingly, it seems – we are being used as pawns to work for the economy.

Azzopardi dares to break or bend the law because this government and its cronies dare to do the same, time and again, in their laser-like focus to ensure that those at the top of the economic and power pyramid consolidate their position to the detriment of us all. 

This is a Times of Malta print opinion piece