“Gawdejtu biżżejjed” – “You’ve enjoyed your property for long enough”. That’s what Infrastructure Malta Fredrick Azzopardi CEO told the farming family who had gone to plead with him for their land not to be taken away for the ill-conceived Mrieħel flyover project. This is the one where the equivalent of three football grounds of fertile, agricultural ODZ land gets the tarmac treatment for Fredrick Azzopardi’s flyover folly.
It is also the project meant to sweep away the Mrieħel Pedestrian Bridge which was inaugurated only three years ago in 2017. This is the same bridge which was a Labour Party electoral pledge in the wake of a fatal traffic accident in 2005 when two girls were mowed down as they crossed the road to return home. The same bridge which sports a commemorative plaque unveiled before the last election, by the then Qormi mayor and now Labour MP and parliamentary secretary Rosianne Cutajar.
Infrastructure Malta has dismissed all of the above and evinced a sudden need for a safety upgrade. The very same agency which is responsible for cycling lanes which end up in a wall, the horrendous mishmash at Żebbuġ and the super-sized roundabout in Qrendi which forces drivers into a side lane, has also tried to pass off this land grab as being required for cycling facilities. However, members of the cycling community were quick to dispel the suggestion such an extravagant take-up of land was required for cycling facilities.
Everything points in another direction – the usual Infrastructure Malta ruse of greenwashing in order to bulldoze through its signature over-the-top, unsustainable, infrastructure-intensive projects. Thankfully, farmers and NGO Moviment Graffitti have stood up to the environmental destruction juggernaut which is Infrastructure Malta. The intervention of heavyweights such as MEP Alfred Sant and former president Marie Louise Coleiro Preca seems to have obtained a stay of execution for the obliteration of Qormi’s last green lung. The Qormi local council has also voted against this project.
All of this may put a stop to this particular land grab. It should also serve to shed a much needed spotlight on Infrastructure Malta – an agency whose accountability is inversely proportional to its power. Infrastructure Malta was set up in 2018 and has a broad remit including all land and maritime infrastructural works. It also has the power to expropriate land and property.
Infrastructure Maltais a rogue agency which has run amok with no strictures and no oversight
The agency is extremely well-funded – with its destruction of rural areas and ill-thought-out projects propped up with a flurry of PR, direct orders to media and communications outfits and convenient consultants. Infrastructure Malta is quite partial to the direct orders procedure with more than €9 million in direct orders to various road builders being dished out during the first six months of this year alone, giving rise to questions about state aid and preferential treatment.
Of course, the agency will claim that all the requisite regulations for the issuing of direct orders are being adhered to and needed in cases of urgency. It does not explain Infrastructure Malta’s granting a €14,000 direct order for PBS TV and Radio slots, or a €25,000 direct order for the “supply and installation of CCTV equipment at Marsa Junction Project for Live Streaming on Website”, and one for €35,000 for a ‘dome tent’ and other items for the infamous Marsa flyover opening ceremony (well before the flyovers were fully functional).
Infrastructure Malta may be squandering taxpayers’ money but, more worryingly, it is practically bankrupting the island’s diversity and making it impossible for there to be any form of sustainable transportation and travel measures in the country. Infrastructure Malta started as it meant to go on. Some weeks after the agency was set up, it started works on the Tal-Balal Road – without a Planning Authority permit – citing “urgency”. The works were completed – however confusing junctions, potential bottlenecks, unsafe bike lanes and missing street signs are among 37 different issues flagged by Transport Malta over the project.
When it rained, it flooded. Infrastructure Malta wreaked havoc on the scheduled valley of Wied Qirda. The country path in the valley bed was tarmacked over and widened considerably, the topography of the valley bed was altered, a large structure was built over the valley bed and the very physical characteristics of the valley were changed - all without authorisation from ERA. The same barbaric modus operandi is followed in other country paths which have become concrete and asphalt rat runs in rural areas.
But Infrastructure Malta’s biggest failure is the sabotaging of a sustainable form of transport policy. Because – whatever those expensive billboards and paid adverts tell you – the agency’s obsession is with infrastructure-intensive projects, widening and creating more roads and promoting private vehicle use. The nods to cycling lanes and pedestrian paths are PR sops – they are restricted, unsafe and decided upon without proper consultation with potential users.
Infrastructure Malta persists in ignoring the scientific and common-sense conclusions that the creation of increased road capacity leads to more cars on the road. The agency’s answer to that is to build even more roads and flyovers, gobbling up more land in a vicious circle. The eventual outcome of this mad strategy is a country where it is practically impossible to travel except by private car, contractors lining their pockets with taxpayers’ money, the destruction of the landscape and even further pollution.
All this brought to us by a rogue agency which has run amok with no strictures and no oversight. Rather than the farmers who have tilled their land for their generations, it is the arrogance chief of Infrastructure Malta who has enjoyed his stint for far too long.