From the rooftop, I could once see Mdina and Mtarfa. Just under 15 years ago, from my home in the centre of Naxxar, I could even see Gozo.
Now, the corner development has blocked the view out altogether. To see Mdina, one has to stretch ones’ neck out from the roof and for that tense 15 seconds catch a rapid glimpse of the Cathedral at Mdina.
There are several more three-storey apartments coming up in Naxxar and the rest of the island, and some of them have extended washrooms serving as penthouses. Penthouses defeat the whole purpose of having photovoltaic and solar panels for the flats underneath. But who cares?
The new planning policy is the brainchild of George Pullicino. He conceived the idea of high rise in the hope that there would be less pressure on the precious land. At least that is what we thought.
But as he marched on with his Lorry Sant approach to town planning, George Pullicino was busily planning the Outside Development Zones.
The ODZ are to Maltese countryside what bombs were to Baghdad. Indeed, they are arguably worse.
Baghdad was bombed day and night by cruise missiles. The devastation that followed after Saddam Hussein was ousted was met with a call for international help to rebuild the centuries-old city.
The same doomsday scenario was experienced in Beirut in Lebanon after the Israeli invasion. The regeneration in both cities is remarkable, though Baghdad is still years away from regaining its former glory.
The land that was given the green light by Minister George Pullicino in the ODZ scandal will be never be returned to their former splendour. As politician and speculator Georg Sapiano will tell us from his vast experience in building and land speculation: once you develop an area, that is it. In other words, ‘ziggi’ you can get back what you lost. Georg, like many other human beings, thinks that money is most important thing in life and the environment of course. At least he only got 53 first count votes in the last election.
Pullicino, in his unadulterated wisdom, argued that we have enough surplus property and we should think of going upwards instead. But when he waved his flag for developing pristine land around our towns and villages, he was not reacting to any supply or demand theorem. And if the idea was to go upwards... then why should we be going sidewards, too?
There was no concise study by MEPA to support his thinking process. It was a very simple argument: a demand by hungry land owners to become richer and richer. Becoming rich is not a sin. It is, however, if you also act like a virgin and a self-righteous zealot.... which is exactly what many of those who preach to the people are.
The ODZ battle was lost, and with it the appreciation of how important it is to regulate and preserve our land and environs.
As Pullicino quietly outlined the incursion on the Maltese countryside, his party’s secretary-general at the time, Joe Saliba, was busily meeting constituents and potential voters. He was listening to their complaints and he must have been quietly registering the positive feedback the ODZ would bring to the traditional voter. Voters have little concern for green issues – what really concerns them is their pocket and bank account.
I am not quite sure what advice if any he gave to Pullicino and his Prime Minister and I am also rather unclear whether he warned his Environment Minister and his PM of the consequences of the ODZ on the environment.
Regarding the latter I would be gobsmacked if he did warn his PM about the environmental impact linked to this decision.
As we all know, Joe Saliba now argues, in his consultative role with big business, that he is no longer a public person and so we are not able to put to him some very pertinent questions.
Not that he would answer questions when he was a secretary general. Yet what is certain is that he is abundantly more astute than the present secretary general.
The other day when Borg Olivier answered my phonecall (accidentally I would say) his first words were to ask if I had any figolla to offer him.
Pawlu listened to what I had to say, and when the line accidentally cut, he put his phone off the hook and refused to answer any of my calls. That’s Okay, because I will not be contacting PBO again for some time.
Joe Saliba was a different political animal. He would listen, say very little and then take down notes in his miniscule handwriting.
Saliba, the former Alternattiva member and Wenzu Mintoff bodyguard, was always underrated and calculating in his ways. He is a self-made man who backed Gonzi and opposed John Dalli.
All those in their late 40s, and with a connection with the Nationalist Party and in possession of a brain, were versed in the art of war and politics by the priest-politician, Peter Serracino Inglott. Joe Azzopardi and Joe Saliba, two lovers of theatre, were baptised by PSI in this art form from an early age. It was from here that they started their voyage to fame and money.
It was Serracino Inglott who egged the rough looking Joe Saliba on (Saliba was then an illiterate and builder) to study and move on. In Joe Saliba he saw an opportunity and a future. Later he would study at University and become campus manager... after a very serious, diligent selection process, of course!
Now as Serracino Inglott battles against the open air theatre in Valletta, those who once eulogised PSI’s wisdom have nothing to say about the theatre. None of them dared question the good judgement of the Prime Minister. It is amazing how people forget about their mentors and abandon them.
Today, their first allegiance is to the King – and the King, as we all know, is the Prime Minister: the man who argues with a conviction that is beyond comprehension that his administration that has done more for the environment than any other. Nothing can be further from the truth.
Indeed, as we enter the third decade of Nationalist rule, there is little doubt in my mind that the Prime Minister has done most for the environment, but not in the way he would like us to think.
Rather than preserving the state of the environment for future generation, he has accomplished tthe opposite: ensuring that the memories of Malta and Gozo are erased and dented to such an extent that no one can remember how it was before.
Perhaps it is time I frame a picture of the townscape of Mdina and Mtarfa to make up for lost memories. On the mount I intend to write the following: ‘In memory of better times, when we thought that things would get better and there wouldn’t be any more Lorry Sants to spoil our country.’
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