I was looking at the map of Japan this morning, specifically at the city of Fukuoka, which is at the southern tip of the island, a 14-hour car ride away from Tokyo.

I don’t have any immediate plans to go there, although I’d love to (sushi is my culinary heaven). My interest stemmed from the fact that, 25 years ago, this city underwent a bit of a residents’ revolt when the last public green space was going to be built up.

The residents would have none of it and, in the end, the architects had to come up with an ingenious solution – they took the public green space upward. The result: the building looks like a magnificent Hanging Gardens of Babylon. Please google ‘Acros’ and you’ll know what I mean. The stepped terraces not only look gorgeous but also keep this commercial building cool, allow natural irrigation for all its vegetation and are a bird haven.

“It is too easy to relegate nature in the suburbs and leave greyness in the city. It is an idea that completely lacks imagination,” its architect, Emilio Ambasz, said.

The ACROS Fukuoka Prefectural International Hall at Tenjin Central Park, Fukuoka, Japan. Photo: ShutterstockThe ACROS Fukuoka Prefectural International Hall at Tenjin Central Park, Fukuoka, Japan. Photo: Shutterstock

If only I could go and can-spray this quote in Mrieħel. I was there the other day, trying and failing to get to Melita because I found myself on the set of Bob the Builder. Mixers, cranes, diggers and what not were blocking every other road. In the event, I got to experience The Quad at close quarters.

The Quad is the fancy name given to the multistoreyed, multiple-mirrored, four towers that are being built on the land between Homemate and Melita.

You don’t need to drive up to Mrieħel to see them; they’re those monstrosities you see towering over all church spires from wherever you look. It’s worse if you happen to live in Birkirkara; they are the ghastly streetscape you see with every corner you turn.

According to their website, The Quad towers are a mega-office space with “breathtaking views” and “a superior setting”. That it lumps the rest of us with an inferior setting and leaves us with wretched views is trivial.

Since it’s “at the crossroads of everything”, they claim, “the convenience afforded to your workforce, your clients and your visitors will never be compromised”. That it is a great inconvenience for the rest of us is also trivial.

What about its green credentials? “Its design, construction, operations and maintenance are resource-efficient” that “ensure the greatest health benefits for building occupants”. Who gives a damn about the non-occupants?

Given the public outcry when the permit was issued, the architectural brief could have been tweaked, with some inspiration perhaps from Japan’s Acros or the Bosco Verticale in Milan, a high rise with a living green facade full of lush trees, plants and shrubs, which has greatly improved the air quality of the community.

But who cares about the common good when straightforward profit can be made from an “outstanding high-profile business address”?

Clearly, the towers’ office space is destined for foreign investors. They’ve even had a special concession clause so “non-Maltese purchasers” won’t have to pay more taxes when buying Quad floor space.

Now, though, I’m wondering, what foreign investors exactly are they targeting? Because the last time I checked, Malta’s attractiveness to foreign investors has plummeted and reached an all-time low in 17 years, all thanks to Malta’s FATF greylisting.

In fact, let’s keep in mind that The Quad’s owners are none other than Gasan and Tumas: one of the main reasons why the country has been greylisted.

They are the very same business tycoons who inflicted the multimillion Electrogas power station on us in 2013, after they got a special concession (with the state as guarantee) from the now disgraced former prime minister Joseph Muscat and his best mate, the pathetic justice-evader, Konrad Mizzi.

Both men and their families are still pocketing money from Electrogas- Kristina Chetcuti

Not happy with that, a year later, the same Gasan-Tumas squad got the government to issue an order to the Planning Authority to include Mrieħel in the locations’ list for high rise buildings (a few weeks later, Yorgen Fenech gave Muscat a €20,000 Bulgari watch as a gift).

Electrogas has looked increasingly like nothing more than a cover for kickbacks and money laundering and the reason why journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia was brutally blown up.

So, to those few remaining investors who still are interested in setting up office in Malta, steer clear of The Quad, choose other beautiful spots on the island to set up base in, spots which are neither, on the evidence, bloodstained nor tainted by allegations of corruption.

Fenech, the man behind the Tumas Group, is in prison, awaiting trial for allegedly masterminding Daphne’s assassination. Coincidentally, this waiting time has seen the independent media come under attack from unknown concerted spoofing campaigns.

Meanwhile, Joe Gasan, chairman of Gasan Group, thinks that we’ll somehow forget his involvement in these corrupt deals if he puts his hands in his pocket, stares wistfully into the far distance and pretends he’s oblivious to everything.

His family still likes to believe they are the cream of Maltese society but fail to realise that people are still hobnobbing with them for those free glasses of champagne at their parties. Both men and their families are still pocketing money from Electrogas.

In the meantime, Robert Abela, in his prime-ministerial budget speech, has promised “a new prosperity”. What’s that exactly? Giving Gasan and Tumas more special concessions?

If Abela truly plans to start afresh, The Quad monument to the Gasan and Tumas greed should be knocked down. And here’s an Emilio Ambasz idea: turn it into a green space in memory of Caruana Galizia.

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