In what has seemingly become a series of weekly scandals, the Gozo Ministry has paid €1m for the expropriation of a 100 metre pathway.

According to the ministry, this new road will serve to improve traffic flow, but a closer look at the plans indicates that this is more than a simple expropriation. In fact, it may lead to the rezoning by stealth of a vast stretch of land for development.

Whoever received that €1m in public funds must have been aware that those 100 metres were key to this development, seeing the generous – exorbitant, in fact – valuation per square metre which is definitely inconsistent with similar expropriations carried out around Malta and Gozo.

This procedure is not too different from that used in Dingli in 2021, when Infrastructure Malta entered private land to build a “schemed” road – although it would only carry out the expropriations after the works had begun.

It is also not very different from the oft-trumpeted scandal involving former PN Works Minister Ninu Zammit, who in 2007 had received €156,000 for the expropriation of two plots of land totalling 187 square metres; Labour, then led by Alfred Sant, had denounced this as “corruption”.

Seventeen years later, none other than Alfred Sant would cast a long shadow over the work of the Gozo Ministry in his column on The Malta Independent. Referring to the ministry as a “glorified local council”, Sant claims that “the person responsible for the ministry enjoys clear power of patronage and control over the running of some ongoing infrastructural works” – which, he says, saw weak spending except for “some bizarre cases”.

The former Labour leader stopped short of referencing under-fire Minister Clint Camilleri, also since his commentary extends to the general way in which the ministry is run and takes its decisions, independently of who is at the helm. Patronage isn’t created with a ministerial appointment, but is built along the years: developed, nurtured, shifted, inherited, and perennially abused.

While this form of patronage may have shielded the Gozitan way of life from turning into a Maltese one overnight, the status quo impacts the efficiency of public administration. Sant, in fact, says that strategic choices related to public transport, the dwindling availability of agricultural land, the rationalisation of school buildings among others were either “fudged or remained pending”.

There is also an electoral dimension to the intricate web of patronage in Gozo, resulting in debacles not too dissimilar from those in Malta. The thirteenth district is traditionally considered to be an election-tipper, and there’s a good chance these scandals will send Camilleri reeling; however, the Gozo Minister is also the Minister for Planning, which involves competing with the Opposition for the graces of the development lobby.

One such debacle referenced by Sant – Fort Chambray – sees both Government and Opposition consenting to the private development of a piece of national historical heritage.

This is also because both key players – Clint Camilleri and Alex Borg – need to ingratiate themselves with the development lobby in their duel for the patronage of Gozo.

It is hardly surprising to see Camilleri on the defensive, seeing the scandals swirling around his ministry, or to see Borg react angrily at an activist who questioned his role in the Chambray saga; it’s as if they feel entitled to their seat and all the privileges it brings with it.

And yet, there’s a simple solution to the issue of patronage in both Gozo and Malta: removing electoral districts would dissolve many a network, feeding into Borg’s well-publicised antipathy for so-called third parties.

The time for reforms is nigh, in Gozo as in Malta.