A quarter of Malta’s landmass is covered by artificial surfaces, six times the EU average and practically twice next worst member Holland.

Seventeen of the 19 workplace fatalities between 2019 and 2021 were in the construction industry, alongside building collapses, three in a single summer, killing residents and workers.

From 2016 to 2018, Malta’s construction industry grew by an estimated 89 per cent. Conservation areas and historic buildings are no longer safe. 

Cement accounts for eight per cent of global carbon emissions. 

But neither government nor opposition have shown any inclination to properly regulate construction. Human lives, and the future of the next generation, provide no shelter from the political power of the building industry, whose desire to concrete over our land knows no limit.

There was another city nearby whose extraordinary historical heritage was devastated in a decade by the unbridled power of the building industry. It happened in the 1950s and 1960s, and is known as the Rape of Palermo.

Building boom

In the early 20th century, fine new buildings sprang up in flourishing Palermo, many in the local Art Nouveau idiom known as the Stile Liberty, whose main exponent was architect Ernesto Basile. Years later, World War II bombing destroyed 40 per cent of Palermo’s housing stock. Post-war migration boosted the city’s population by 100,000 between 1951 and 1961.

The much-needed building boom of the 1950s and 1960s saw the Mafia shift into construction.

Abusing regulations

In 1956 two new Democrazia Cristiana city councillors were elected. Salvo Lima, suave, cultured and charming, immediately became commissioner for Public Works, then, in 1958, mayor. Vito Ciancimino, rude, loud and abrasive, inherited public works, later becoming mayor himself.

A 1956 plan to regulate the expanding city limped through 25 drafts over six years, each with hundreds of laboriously discussed amendments, before it was finally approved by local government.

Politicians, allied with construction moguls and Mafia bosses, used this hiatus to build, build, build. An interim plan allowed building in areas allocated for protected status. The Mafia obtained control of vast swathes of territory. In return it guaranteed politicians votes and patronage, building mutually serving loyalties.

Ciancimino kept in regular contact with fellow Corleonese fugitive from justice (eventually Mafia leader) Bernardo Provenzano. Pentito Tommaso Buscetta later testified that prominent Mafiosi repeatedly met Lima at City Hall.

In the four corrupt years from 1959, 80 per cent of the 4,200 building permits were granted to just five men, frontmen for powerful businesses. Ciancimino is said to have approved 3,000 applications in one night.

Uniqueness destroyed

Worst affected was the area linking Via Liberty to the new airport at Punta Raisi. Many experts had objected to the airport’s siting. Lashed by strong winds from looming mountains, it has been associated with several major plane crashes. But it was close to land controlled by Mafia boss Tano Badalamenti. Few open spaces survived. 

To many, the most sacrilegious legacy was the replacement of over a hundred Stile Liberty villas by nondescript, badly built tower blocks. The Mafia devastated the character of a great city.

In four corrupt years, 80 per cent of the building permits were granted to just five men, frontmen for powerful businesses- Victor Pace

The most egregious was the demolition of Basile’s Villa Deliella. Its listed status, granted in 1954, was revoked by Palermo council three years later, on the legal grounds that it had been finished less than 50 years previously.

The 1956 plan had earmarked the villa and its gardens for public use. The council rescinded this in 1959. On November 28, a Saturday, the council rushed through approval for its demolition. It was destroyed that very night, before anyone noticed, four weeks short of qualifying for listed status.

Such was the outrage that no one dared build over the razed grounds. The annihilated architectural gem became a car park. Also concreted over were the vast legendary lemon groves of the Conca d’Oro outside Palermo.

Punta Raisi Airport, unsuitable but dictated by Mafia interest and a main reason for the sack of Palermo. Photo: Shutterstock.com

Dire consequences

The Sack of Palermo had cataclysmic consequences for all. The Mafia’s new political leverage eventually led to hubris, with leader Totò Riina declaring war against the state, ending in the 1992 murders of anti-Mafia judges Falcone and Borsellino.

At last, the reaction of the state was swift and crushing, reducing the Mafia to a shadow of its former self.

Palermo, designed to be cooled by sea breezes rebounding off the mountains, is now dominated by tower blocks which choke air circulation and trap in stifling heat, even before climate change. Numerous picturesque bays were destroyed by dumped construction material.

Politicians who abuse power never seem to realise that one day that power will almost invariably drain away, and they will spend their older years looking over their shoulder dodging the many bullets that could come their way.

In the 1980s the Mafia carried out many illustrious murders partly to protect Ciancimino, among them Piersanti Mattarella, regional president and brother of the current Italian president, and Pio La Torre, whose law proposal to weaken the Mafia Falcone eventually pushed through with devastating effectiveness.

But in 1992 Ciancimino was condemned to 13 years in prison for corruption. He died a broken man. Salvo Lima was shot by Mafia hitmen in 1992 just outside his villa in Mondello. Injured, he tried to run away, only to be cut down by three more bullets. His last words were “Madonna santa, they’re coming back!” 

Some think he was murdered to warn his political master, Giulio Andreotti, to reverse laws that condemned the top echelons of the Mafia to life in prison without parole.

Victor Pace is a doctor who lives in the UK.