The Environment Minister has launched Project Green, the agency entrusted with a €700 million fund to provide new open spaces in our localities.
This forms part of the Labour Party’s electoral manifesto and was described as a shift from “infrastructure to the environment” in President George Vella’s speech on the opening of Parliament last May.
That speech, traditionally written by the government, delivers a sort of false equivalence: the government dedicates €700 million for the construction of open spaces but a substantial amount of this cache will be spent on infrastructure, over and above the €500 million allocated by the government for the continuation of the roadbuilding spree seen in the last years. The €200 million difference between the two budgets does not really imply a change in direction.
There are quite a few reasons why Project Green was met with widespread cynicism.
First of all, this is essentially another agency led by yet another trusted member of a minister’s entourage, backed by the now familiar calls for interest from the private sector. This is a formula that has been used and abused since the days of Joseph Muscat, when authorities were gradually turned into entities keener on facilitating business than enforcing regulations.
The launch of the agency and its first two announced projects look like small godsends on paper. Let’s face it: the vast majority of people in the country would love to see a government investing in the environment rather than accuse it of being guilty of having destroyed swathes of it.
But time – and the execution of these projects by all entities involved – will tell whether the government is just throwing money at a problem or making it worse.
One wonders whether Project Green will be another way for private interests to lay their hands on chunks of public money, a sort of greenwashed sister to Infrastructure Malta. New CEO Steve Ellul, a potential candidate for an MEP seat, has to tackle more than public relations in his role, especially considering the wealth of resources at hand.
Interestingly, however, it took MEP Alex Agius Saliba to point out the gigantic inconsistency in the pledge to provide more open spaces, ironically doing so in a post applauding the creation of this new entity.
Agius Saliba stated what many others before him – including NGOs – have expressed, by saying that, first, our existing green spaces need to be preserved.
The creation of more open spaces would be a hypocritical attempt at compensating the public if the pressure and speculation around green zones in our towns are allowed to continue and if the loopholes in our planning laws are not sealed once and for all.
Underground traffic modes with overhead gardens are sexy, marketable and much needed. But they are largely pointless if engulfed by incessant construction in our towns.
Similarly, the cynicism is justified if the agency launch is followed up by news of thousands of objections to the proposed Comino development, which, together with the take-up of the Blue Lagoon by rogue deckchair vendors, will essentially lead to the privatisation of a key open space.
Ħondoq ir-Rummien, meanwhile, remains in private hands, which demand a €22 million ransom. The general, bi-partisan anger at so many proposed ‘projects’ should be the kind of survey to influence Dalli and Ellul’s vision, an indicator of the malaise eating away at our “quality of life”.
For quality to be ensured, the balance of decisions has to shift: from business opportunities to public well-being.