Alfred Sant backs calls to exclude illegalities from Storm Harry damage fund

Former Labour prime minister Alfred Sant has lent his support to those calling for the government not to provide financial compensation for illegal structures and street furniture damaged by Storm Harry.

Writing in Thursday’s The Malta Independent, Sant said that arguments calling for business illegalities to be excluded from government assistance “make sense and deserve being listened to”.

Sant’s comments come a day after the Malta Chamber said that “Public money – taxpayers’ money which workers and ethical businesses pay – cannot and must not be used to support, fund or reward illegal business operations”.

The chamber was responding to Prime Minister Robert Abela’s announcement Tuesday that businesses with illegal structures would be eligible to claim up to €5,000 each from a €1 million fund set up to help storm-affected businesses.

Sant said that while the government was “proceeding correctly” by providing compensation, the decision to provide state backing to storm-affected businesses had prompted questions.

Noting that with some businesses potentially having not taken out private insurance, the former PM asked: “Will the government help only those who have not been "sufficiently prudent by taking out insurance?”

He said that “the strongest comment”, meanwhile, had been made by those suggesting that the government, “with its array of valid subsidies, should not give support to firms which broke the law... and who will now come to request compensation for their loss”.

The issue of compensation for illegalities was first raised Saturday, when resident groups across Sliema, Valletta and Marsascala – localities frequently in the spotlight for illegal chairs and tables – called for business illegalities to be excluded from compensation and for authorities to use the opportunity to enforce the law.

Opposition parties backed the calls, with Momentum warning that compensating illegalities would be “unacceptable” and ADPD later calling the government’s decision "deeply irresponsible and fundamentally unjust".

Malta was battered by gale-force winds and strong waves for 24 hours last month as Storm Harry made landfall, laying waste to coastal areas, with Għar Lapsi among the worst hit.

Referring to Għar Lapsi’s Carmen’s Bar restaurant, decimated by the storm, Abela said Tuesday such businesses were “earning an honest and decent living. They might not have everything in line with the law, and we will treat that from a planning aspect and ideally bring them in line”.

He denied the move amounted to funding illegalities, arguing instead that the government did not want to “punish someone in such a sensitive moment” or “abandon” businesses.

Carmen’s Bar owner Gilbert Borg told Times of Malta in the aftermath of the storm that “God decided to wash everything away”, after finding boats in the kitchen of his popular seaside restaurant, which had pushed through the wall of an adjacent boathouse.

In Thursday’s article, Sant also discussed broader themes of trust and its origins, suggesting that the “problem” or “challenge” was establishing a criterion accepted by all areas of society to engender trust.

On international matters, the former PM argued it “does not make sense for Malta to project itself as a holy protagonist in faraway conflicts in which it has no direct or valid voice or share”.