“Everything I know about morality and the obligations of men, I owe it to football” is the Albert Camus quote captioned at the beginning of L’arbitro (The Referee, 2013), a dreamy surreal comedy about a deeply religious international referee and a regional football league in northwestern Sardinia.
There’s less of the nauseating plot where an upper middle-class man from Milan is perennially cast in the south or on the islands, often depicted as desolate and backward; it’s more about devotion to God and rule books and how it’s tested in the corridors of power.
Footballing politics can be as nasty as those in civil administration, often made of dirty compromises and treacherous secret agreements; something the referee would eventually have to deal with.
Possibly, this is what led Trustin Farrugia Cann to choose a career in refereeing over that of an engineer. Handpicked to replace Fredrick Azzopardi at the helm of Infrastructure Malta (IM), there were hopes the new broom would herald a new way of doing things.
His tenure at IM lasted less than a VAR check in the Premier League, as he announced his resignation right after IM’s first public hiccup: the Żebbuġ-Siġġiewi roadworks. Councillors present at a meeting held last week remarked how Farrugia Cann sat in his seat and contributed little while two up-and-coming honchos made it clear to everyone that the plans are set and the roadworks will go ahead no matter what.
These two, Raphael Abdilla and Noel Vella, were senior players in Azzopardi’s cabal. Both are familiar faces, especially Vella’s: on the first morning of the Graffitti action in Dingli last year he had been filmed ordering the police about; he tried to provoke an activist into retaliation and intervened to stop a contractor from using heavy machinery inches from residents – only after realising the incident was being livestreamed.
Vella was also seen in Żebbuġ when IM turned up to demolish the garden of a housing estate as Azzopardi stomped about the scene escorted by the RIU in another sickening show of arrogance.
It is possible Farrugia Cann was asked to watch over a manhole but realised he’s been asked to go down the bottomless pit bored by his predecessor. That the roadbuilding agency runs on a steam of dishonesty and bullying has been made abundantly obvious during its infancy. Anyone with a shred of morality and FIFA accreditation would rather blow their whistles on the pitch than go along with their agency’s misdeeds on the ground.
Infrastructure Malta was created in 2017, with a €700 million budget dedicated to the “upgrade of the road network”. It was given huge manpower, equipment and handed over to Azzopardi, who exited Enemalta smelling of cologne despite the stench of the Electrogas and Montenegro deals.
Among others, the agency was given the power to expropriate land in accordance with the provisions of the Lands Act but this was systematically ignored until Dingli. There, IM was caught entering private land before expropriating; a report by the ombudsman for planning condemned it for contracting the roadworks before receiving clearance from Transport Malta and confirmed Moviment Graffitti’s statements about the irregular expropriations.
Reforming Infrastructure Malta is impossible without dissolving it- Wayne Flask
Interestingly, the Lands Authority Act and the Government Lands Act, also of 2017, have quietly removed the requirement for expropriations to be signed off by the President of the Republic. This is now the remit of the Lands’ board of governors, thus removing another layer of oversight on the authority. At the time, both Lands and Infrastructure were under Ian Borg’s portfolio.
In the same year, many new companies were registered and started winning roadbuilding contracts. Others rebranded, formed semi-secretive consortia or came in from the cold on the strength of new friendships, this time with Labour.
This is how many contractors made a quick buck out of the €700 million fund, largely doled out in direct orders. Furniture makers suddenly started building tunnels; Joseph Portelli took an interest in building roads; sleeping giants like Bonnici Bros, V&C and Schembri came back to life; Charles Polidano, now investigated for money laundering, won tenders through joint ventures despite being “blacklisted” by IM for fiscal issues.
Even that was a farcical blacklisting, seeing IM itself paid out €1.5 million to three contractors without a valid fiscal receipt and also issued €16 million in prefinancing despite their own tender prohibiting this.
Not even the ref can change the flow of play, that made of skilful dribbling and repeated high-footed tackles. Aaron Farrugia’s clumsy attempts at rebranding his ministry were unmasked by IM’s attitude towards the Żebbuġ and Siġġiewi councils and residents, who were reminded that, although Azzopardi is gone, his legacy lives on.
There’s a €500 million budget earmarked for roadbuilding, which means there will be vultures hovering for more flesh and there’s little consolation in knowing that people close to Borg and Azzopardi still call the shots. It also explains why Farrugia is digging his heels on the Mrieħel flyover, instead of considering the Qormi local council’s alternative proposals.
Infrastructure Malta embodies the toxic culture of greed-on-speed, to the extent that even senior staff asked to be transferred elsewhere because of the chronic harassment suffered from their superiors. Reforming IM is impossible without dissolving it.
This won’t happen, of course.
I wonder whether the behemoth will be involved in the €700 million urban greening projects, which will necessitate their own amount of digging and building. This comes on top of the €500 million for new roads, a reminder that further closures are the only guarantees of our congested, unsustainable transit system.
In the meantime, IM has started works on the Żebbuġ-Siġġiewi junction, in what seems to be a pre-warning of what is to come.
Farrugia and “his” men can sleep tight: resistance to Infrastructure Malta and its filth is a socially moral obligation for many, independently of their knowledge of Camus.
We’ll see you in the stands.