The Golden Calf
It is a tragedy announced a long time ago. Everybody is angry but nobody is surprised. This human drama laced with tragedy has a name, Miriam Pace. But make no mistake about it for it could have easily had your name or mine, so widespread is the contempt of the building contractors for the law.
That fateful afternoon, the mechanical excavator was digging and moving earth in the construction site adjacent to Miriam’s family home. Suddenly there was a huge noise and Miriam’s home was razed to the ground. It came tumbling down with her inside, and for eight hours or so, she was trapped beneath the rubble and debris. At a cursory glance, the odds were that she was no longer alive. Sadly, Miriam did not live to tell the tale.
The untimely death of Miriam Pace due to flagrant violations of safety standards and regulations cannot be overlooked just because the golden calf of a booming construction industry brings economic benefits to the entire country. On the contrary, we must voice our anger and demand that our right to live safely in our homes be respected by the State that is obliged to ensure that effective law enforcement and sanctions are in place.
The property developers’ apparent impunity to prosecution has bred an arrogance among the more unscrupulous of them that makes any decent law-abiding citizen’s stomach churn. Those of us who already live next door to a construction site know a thing or two about the daily misery inflicted upon us by money-grubbing speculators.
The government cannot contain indefinitely the mounting anger of the public that feels betrayed by the Prime Minister’s pandering to the Malta Developers Association (MDA). Effectively, the MDA has become a millstone round Dr Abela’s neck. On top of that, the association apparently lacks the control to rein in the rogue developers among its members due to the greed of some, and negligence by others.
Neither can the government keep the charade that everything is back to normal going on for much longer. The Prime Minister is channelling all his energies into covering for the multitude of scandals by the previous administration and consequently obscuring his focus from more pressing issues of law enforcement that demand his immediate attention. Besides, there is a strong general feeling that, just like his predecessor, he treats the MDA with kid gloves for fear of killing the goose that lays the golden eggs.
But more importantly, he must address his government’s growing credibility problem. Because it’s not quite business as usual despite the best efforts to pretend that it is. A woman has just lost her life, crushed beneath a cloud of dust and debris while she was minding her own business in the privacy of her home. Her surviving family no longer have a roof over their head. They have lost all that was precious.
And day after day, scores of other persons live in fear of suffering a similar fate. Because they no longer believe that the State will step up their security by clamping down on the widespread abuse by rogue building contractors and property developers. And because lack of accountability has corroded public trust in our political leaders who have assumed the role to provide only the illusion of accountability.
During the homily at Miriam Pace’s funeral mass, the Archbishop, Mons. Scicluna stressed that the Maltese people should insist for justice for Miriam and not for vengeance. The problem is that along with the anger, there is a growing frustration among people of good will who feel powerless and impotent in the face of such a tragic situation that could have very well been their own. To some extent, therefore, society’s desire to settle the score with unscrupulous operators is understandable.
When news of the Panama Papers broke in 2016, crime was associated with the highest office in the land. It became increasingly apparent that the former prime minister’s chief collaborator and his favourite minister could break the rules with impunity. The feeling that living was much harder for those who obeyed the law catapulted rogues operating in any business sector into defiant resistance to the rule of law.
That arrogance was one of the reasons that led to a change at the top of the government. However, with the benefit of hindsight, it was more a game of musical chairs played on the government benches. We lesser mortals expected something better than just a shuffle in the corridors of power. Not much has changed. Impunity is still the order of the day.