La mafia uccide solo d’estate (2013) is the story of a 10-year-old boy who falls in love with a magistrate’s daughter and his gradual realisation of Sicily’s cohabitation with Cosa Nostra – the existence of which has been denied by generations of politicians.
Cries of “Mafia State” after Daphne Caruana Galizia’s brutal execution five years ago were not delirious. The Joseph Muscat administration tried to suppress them, busier preserving the mirrors while the ground beneath its feet shook violently. Local denials of collusion between organised crime and politics sounded like repetitions of the old adage known among our neighbours up north: “the Mafia doesn’t exist.”
The Kordin tragedy took the life of 20-year-old JeanPaul Sofia, who was out at work when the five-storey building unravelled, crushing him and other construction workers under the debris. While the alleged rights of the unborn took centre stage, the authorities took the opportunity to look away; convenient, for those who believe that this is “just another accident”.
In his piece on MaltaToday, casually titled ‘Another building collapse’, retired architect Michael Falzon incredibly turned his water pistols onto Moviment Graffitti, accusing them of silence and crocodile tears. According to him, the “eNGO” has no political mileage to gain from this latest construction death because “there isn’t a clear us and them narrative”.
Purely for context, Falzon is a former PN minister who gave birth to the Malta Developers Association, for whom he still acts as a sort of mystical godfather, blowing his clogged vuvuzela at imaginary communists hidden in non-existent woods.
Yet, ignorance is not an excuse. Falzon not only missed a harsh statement from Graffitti but is obtusely reductive in his use of the “eNGO” term. Their statute, written even before the MDA came into existence, defines the group’s principles mired in social justice, not environmentalism.
His uninformed, incoherent tirade reminds me of the loud firework let off by MDA president Michael Stivala a few weeks ago, where he claimed that big business is financing some (unnamed) NGOs. Far from substantiating the allegation, Gejges Khan turned to at least one cabinet minister, asking him to intervene and placate “aggressive eNGOs” exposing his doublespeak in column inches.
Not only did Graffitti not “shut their mouth” but the ‘us and them narrative’ takes a bigger dimension, for those who can read the signs.
The Sicilian mafia rarely blows people up these days; more suited than booted, they’ve taken their business elsewhere, infiltrating public administration, funnelling dirty moneys to secretive accounts around the world, a new cohabitation pact which keeps politicians happy and well fed.
Every so often, buildings crumble. Some were born out of The Sack of Palermo, a lawless construction boom lasting 30 years, which destroyed the city’s history and green areas, flooding it with dirty money and poor concrete.
Since 2004, 12 bridges collapsed in Italy: this is public infrastructure built in the 1960s by fronts of criminal organisations, which run on laundered capital, poor quality material and subpar construction.
Which brings us to Kordin and questions that need answers.
We know that this piece of public land was given by the Lands Authority to an alleged human trafficker close to CEO Robert Vella.
Far from an accident, this is a chink in the mafia’s machine. Whenever it stutters, people die- Wayne Flask
The prime minister, who, in 2020, issued a €4m fund for “eco-friendly construction equipment”, said it’s unacceptable for anybody to just buy machinery and become a contractor overnight.
The building was designed by architect Adriana Zammit, who, despite being salaried by the state’s infrastructural agency, has filed at least 33 planning applications on behalf of various individuals since 2020.
The proposed timber factory in Kordin was approved by two successive development notification orders, which effectively put applications on the fast track.
This was made possible by Labour in 2021, together with a tweak to the local plans abolishing building height limitations in industrial areas.
These amendments were tabled in parliament by then-environment minister Aaron Farrugia; Lands (once under Ian Borg) and INDIS are big red balls in Silvio Schembri’s court.
However, we don’t know if there were any inspections from the BCA, led by Maria Schembri Grima, who handles a third of Joseph Portelli’s applications.
Similarly, we haven’t heard of anyone being arrested.
Falzon “speculates” about a “combination of different circumstances” leading to this “incident”.
We can agree it wasn’t the butler. Inadequate authorities and watered-down regulations, a land concession to an insider and, according to the prime minister, contractors who shouldn’t even be in the industry, all contributed to this death.
Who, if not business and the mafia within, stands to benefit from this combination of murky circumstances?
Funny that Falzon chose to attack civil society as if to divert attention from the real culprits.
Recently, the MDA has been pining for a register of contractors. In reality, this had been launched in 2019, however, the then-BRO chief, Michael Ferry delegated its administration to that same lobby. The Planning ombudsman decreed this as illegal: a case of public maladministration where the government relinquished its duties to a business cabal.
During an episode of Xarabank after Miriam Pace was killed in her home in 2020, Falzon spoke of a “mistake”, despite three collapses the previous summer.
Is it also a “mistake” that one of the people convicted for the accident is still very actively filing development applications despite a suspended sentence? What, or who, is stopping the withdrawal of his warrant as provided by the Periti Act?
The brief trickle of information about Kordin points at a system of greed which is crumbling under its own girth. Far from an accident, this is a chink in the mafia’s machine. Whenever it stutters, people die.
The mafia, or mafias if you like, are deadly in winter too.
Like many others this year, Sofia’s family won’t be celebrating Christmas. They, just like the family of Hayrettin Kok, who died on Stivala’s tower in Ta’ Xbiex last May, will have to make do with the silence of the authorities, a concrete veil of state-sponsored omertà that plays in the hands of criminals, launderers and those who cover up for them.
Independently of what Falzon and Stivala imply, for many of us justice is a priority.
Rest in power, Jean Paul.