Foreign Affairs Minister Ian Borg is once again at the centre of attention after the courts decreed – for the second time – that his ODZ swimming pool is illegal.
The saga has been rambling on since 2018, when Borg was granted the permit and then completed the works while the Environment and Planning Review Tribunal appeal was still pending.
The EPRT would also uphold the permit but its arguments were shot down by the appeals court, which highlighted how local plans clearly have precedence over policy guidance notes; it appears that the members of the tribunal are simply unable to read what’s in the laws and regulations.
However, it would have been surprising, in the current state of things, had the members of the EPRT refused a permit to their own minister.
This is not the first time Borg is in hot water with justice.
In 2020, the court had decreed his testimony in a libel case over his purchase of a parcel of land in Rabat as “lacking credibility”. In that instance, the minister had been accused of buying property from a vulnerable person with mental health issues.
Borg is no newcomer to controversy, as his years in the role of transport and infrastructure minister have confirmed.
He has had frequent clashes with civil society, farmers, residents and even PL mayors during his tenure.
His alliance with Fredrick Azzopardi saw an escalation in improper if not outright illegal, behaviour from Infrastructure Malta.
The state’s roadbuilding agency quickly became known for its tactics, including entering private land without having expropriated it, damaging residences and continuing infrastructural works despite stop orders from the Environment and Resources Authority.
Throughout all this, Borg steadfastly referred to the “rule of law” and went out on a limb to defend PA personnel responsible for various planning howlers. Borg’s political slogan was ‘getting things done’.
The minister certainly cannot be criticised for sitting idle. He delivered a number of large capital projects, but too many were mired in controversy, and some have caused irreparable damage.
The aftershocks of his stewardship as the transport, infrastructure and planning ministry are only starting to be felt.
The country remains caught up in a perpetual gridlock as roadworks commissioned under his tenure are yet to be completed or have to be redone.
Borg is also responsible for the lack of a contractors’ registry, four years after the planning ombudsman decreed it illegal: the government had “outsourced” its administration to the Malta Developers Association.
Borg’s purchase of the property in Rabat and subsequent testimony warranted his dismissal at the time but it went by largely unnoticed.
Now, there is a clear court sentence which says that Borg’s pool broke the law. However, he can still enjoy it.
This practice of breaking the law and paying a fine is reminiscent of Joseph Portelli, another seed of growing discomfort in the Labour Party.
In an attempt to cut the former Dingli mayor down to size, Prime Minister Robert Abela repeatedly demoted Borg after Joseph Muscat had given him enormous powers as minister for planning, transport, lands, infrastructure and capital projects.
Giving him the foreign ministry may have been a way to boot him out of the way quietly. We will not delve into the fact that successive Maltese governments have rarely given the foreign affairs ministry the importance it deserves.
But it is sad to see a society resigned to the fact that ministers can get away with almost anything, often by simply getting kicked upstairs.