Resign, in the name of decency - Kristina Chetcuti

Icannot even begin to imagine the magnitude of the grief of the Pace family. They have not only lost a mother and a wife, they have lost their home too.

When my father died in an accident 12 years ago, at least my mother, my sister and I could gather round the kitchen table and grieve together; and in the home which we had all shared together, we could feel my father watching over us and take solace from being surrounded by his things all over the house. The Pace family has been denied that.

They cannot walk from room to room of their own home, recalling memories and treasuring them. They cannot look at their mother’s clothes, and bury their heads in her scent.

Her daughter Ivana cannot put on her mother’s necklace or bracelet in order to feel close to her spirit. Her son, Matthew, whose birthday it was on that fateful day when their home was brought down like a pack of cards, will never be able to celebrate his day again. Her husband Carmelo cannot lie down on his wife’s pillow and mourn in the quiet of the home he and his wife built together.

The Pace family have to rebuild a nest from scratch, without a cache of lifetime memories, at a time when they most need these memories to keep them going. They cannot seek solace in the comfort of their home. They have been widowed, orphaned and made homeless in the very same instant.

We watched all this happen; appalled, horrified. This was no act of God, no unfortunate accident, no sheer fluke. It did not happen in a vacuum: this was the fourth building collapse in 12 months. The Pace family has been cheated out of a loved one and out of its own home, almost by design.

By all means, arrest the architects, arrest the developer, arrest whoever you want. But this is not solely a criminal act, this is also about political and moral responsibility

We are appalled because we feel the pain of this inconsolable family. And we look at them and we know that it could have easily been you or me. Somewhere close to our homes, we all have a digger excavating a plot to build a concrete blob that will block the sky forever. And we are horrified because the Pace family made us realise how we are no longer safe even in our own homes. 

Miriam Pace is a victim of the state’s sanctioning of utter greed. She was killed because Malta’s government has, in the last years, relaxed all sorts of planning rules in order to accommodate developers, in exchange for votes and cash. This is corruption. And this is what corruption does to a nation: it kills its own people.

We have turned a blind eye to this for too long, maybe because it paid us to do so, or perhaps out of fear, or mere apathy. This is what happens when individual greed takes over the common good. This is what happens in a nation which functions only on the basis of exchanging favours for votes. This is the price of “l-aqwa li qiegħed komdu jien”.

The anger of the people out there is no blame game, as the Minister for Infrastructure Ian Borg so distastefully said right after Mrs Pace was pulled out dead from under the rubble. This is not about blaming and this is certainly no game. This is about two words: shouldering responsibility.

Out of respect – if there is anyone in power who still has an ounce left of that – out of respect to the family, the state has to shoulder responsibility for this horrible tragedy.

Yes, by all means, arrest the architects, arrest the developer, arrest whoever you want. But this is not solely about the criminal act, this is also about political and moral responsibility.

The people employed by the state and who are paid out of our taxes to ensure that we are safe from construction danger in our own homes are the following: Ian Borg, the minister in charge of the construction industry; Michael Ferry, the head of the Building Regulations Office; Robert Musumeci, the government’s consultant on planning and Sandro Chetcuti, the government’s consultant on the property sector.

Resigning their post is the only decent thing they can do if they have a smidgen of genuine remorse and a minimal understanding of what their public roles are. They may not have been on site signing the paperwork or driving the JCB, but by God, they are the people chosen by the state to be responsible for our overall safety in our own homes – and over and over again, they have failed to deliver.

We can never even begin to console the Pace family. All we can do, as we share their grief for their wife and mother, is to stand up together as a civil society and change our damned culture and mentality. Maybe Miriam’s future grandchildren will be able to live in a society which truly treasures the meaning of common good.