It would seem that building illegalities are now spiralling out of control. The government and its agenciesin many cases are taking action only after the acts are done rather than making sure that the country’s law enforcement network works efficiently.
For a classic case showing an inability to get to grips with an almost anarchic situation, consider what has been happening in Gozo. For eight whole weeks, the island was buzzing with reports that a concrete batching plant was being assembled without a permit in a quarry in Kerċem. But, stupefyingly, the Planning Authority’s enforcement directorate had been blissfully unaware of this.
Outrageous as this is, it is only the beginning of the story, for even when the Planning Authority ordered the work to stop, assembly of the plant was resumed immediately after the enforcement officers left the quarry. The cherry on the cake is that the quarry itself is subject to enforcement orders that have been pending for years.
All this suggests either a complete breakdown of the authority’s enforcement arm or serious deficiencies that call for urgent action before it becomes even more difficult for the authority to exercise its functions.
If the authority’s enforcement directorate has not been able to get to know of such a massive illegality in no time after work started on the assembly of the plant, how is it going to cope with the endless number of small infringements of the regulations across the country? These and many other cases of illegalities have created a free-for-all environment in which people do not think twice before building without a permit, knowing full well that in some way or other they will get it sanctioned.
Indeed, the owners or operators of the concrete batching plant in Kerċem now have the gall to apply for the sanctioning of the plant. People would now expect the authority to throw such an application out of the window. How is the PA going to regain a grain of credibility if it does not match the penalty to the illegality? And is it not absolutely incredible for an authority spokesman to say that it had not received any complaints about the case prior to the report made by this newspaper? Does the PA not have a representative in Gozo?
Sad too is what is happening at the Gozo citadel where apertures have been allowed to be opened in a boutique hotel wall overlooking the ditch below, with the heritage organisation Wirt Għawdex already expressing great disappointment.
As the government is lost in congratulating itself about its last two massive electoral successes, and good economic figures, it is scandalously neglecting the proper running of the country’s administrative structures. It has now thrown good governance to the wind, banking on the flourishing state of the economy for electoral support.
The government had plunged itself into rolling out get-rich-quick measures without first making sure that it has the efficient backing of all arms of the administration to avoid the kind of difficulties that are now cropping up. Along with many other shortcomings, the latest string of incidents in the construction industry and the assembly of the illegal batching plant in Kerċem symbolise rampant disregard for good governance.
This is a Times of Malta print editorial