Cali ic-Caqnu

So they have now decided to hit out at construction magnate Charles Polidano.

Pity that Polidano - better known as iċ-Ċaqnu - has not chosen to sit down to divulge the story of his life and of all those intermediaries, big and small, that intervened over the years on behalf of the Polidano Group with this administration.

The last time I met Charles Polidano and sat in his office, one of his lawyers was Beppe Fenech Adami, the son of Eddie Fenech Adami and one of the PN's rising stars. There are other stars waiting to take over when the king falls from his throne.

If only I could repeat what I heard that day. Ċaqnu, as you may have heard, is not the sort of guy who likes to spill his secrets. In the few minutes that I sat with him, he revealed the names of all the journalists who had offered to help him in exchange for a handsome sum.   

I was there after a columnist - a lawyer who wrote for this newspaper at the time - accused Ċaqnu of being a baron. And Ċaqnu, while out eating with his family at his hotel, reacted by slapping the lawyer.

Six years ago I had written:

"When Claire Bonello walked up to Nationalist candidate-to-be Beppe Fenech Adami and commented flippantly about barons et al, it was to be expected that iċ-Ċaqnu, who was seated at the same table, would take offence. It was, after all, his hotel and his family who were in attendance. Anyone else might argue that being provoked, they would be reasonably justified in lifting their hand and slapping a woman in the face.

"But Ċaqnu, of course, should have had the good sense of inviting the angry columnist to his table to ask her to elaborate on the 'baron' accusation. In the end we all know the story - or part of it.

"My absent column last Sunday (held back due to some bad time management), led to a torrent of speculation, suggesting I did not write last week because I was in Ċaqnu's pockets. 'You see, Balzan is in cahoots with Caqnu, one leading Green party representative messaged to my colleague', accusing 'us' of having sold our soul and advising him to seek less corrupt pastures.

"I have no hang-ups about being accused of being an angry middle-aged editor, but to be accused of being on Ċaqnu's payroll is taking it far too far. For having been the first newspaper to have published a mugshot of Ċaqnu I was the honoured recipient of several phone calls and messages..."

Time passes. The same columnist migrated to The Times. Claire Bonello happens to have coined the enduring slogan 'Vote George, Get Lorry' at an environmentalists' rally back in 2006, a dig at then environment minister George Pullicino, who was compared to the late Labour minister Lorry Sant. 

Bonello is a lucky woman, but not so a certain Jo Said, who temporarily stole the show during the 2008 elections as a heckler during PN meetings. Said's own sarcastic reference to the 'Vote George Get Lorry' poster was declared in the courts to have been tantamount to slander.

This week, The Times took credit for MEPA's action against Charles Polidano. Timing-wise, it looks pretty correct considering that MEPA took action after that newspaper featured quite a late story on the enforcement actions served on Polidano's Hal Farrug complex.

Readers should be made aware that MaltaToday has published countless stories about Polidano, the excesses of so many building contractors and other business magnates, the contravention of planning laws, and cases of where ministerial influence was actively sought for the profit of a few.

In the press we always question the timing and choice of certain targets: we doubt that The Times took the same aggressive attitude when it came to other contractors.

So it seems that Mr Polidano is no longer in the government's good books. We can of course think of a few reasons for this. He no longer openly sponsors the politicians who today form part of the Gonzi Cabinet.

It would be interesting to ask each and every minister presently sitting at Cabinet to declare whether they have ever received anything in kind from Mr Polidano over the last ten years. We could start with Mr George Pullicino and Dr Jason Azzopardi.

My hunch is that things do not happen just like that at MEPA. Rumours abound that MEPA has been egged on to take action for ulterior motives. We will never know, because it is next to impossible to prove who pulls the strings.

MEPA tries to give the impression that is a transparent organisation. But many choices are motivated by reasons that can never fully explained. For example, when a former MEPA chairman fell out with the authority's head of legal services, the lawyer was promptly assigned to handle only appeals cases whilst President George Abela's legal firm was appointed by direct order to take over all MEPA's caseload, handled by his son Robert and his wife (a candidate and the executive committee secretary for Labour, respectively). One of Abela's law firm's partners, Ian Stafrace, was then appointed chief executive of MEPA after its organisational reform. And so has environment director Petra Bianchi been appointed directly.

And what is characteristic about MEPA is the timing and importance it gives to many of its decisions. Which is why we ask, why take action against Polidano now, and not earlier? For example, when in the 2008 election the MEPA auditor's report declared that an irregular permit had been issued for his Lidl supermarket...

Does MEPA act independently, without anyone at the very top taking action and blessing symbolic targets like Polidano?

For example, can MEPA's chief executive Ian Stanfrace decide to have the illegal boathouses constructed in Armier and by many other bays, demolished? Or does he need the environment minister's consent?

Maybe the Times can enquire with its owners, the Strickland Foundation, which includes Mario de Marco and ask him these questions.

And if Stafrace is so adamant about positive action against all illegalities, why doesn't he start with some easy prey - all the hunting hides that are constructed over public land? Would he have to consult Mario de Marco?

I wonder what De Marco would say. Would he say: "Hey Ian, it's ok. No need to inform me. This is your decision. And it is up to you"?

Well, things do not work that way. If MEPA were to take action over all the illegalities it has underneath its nose, Mario de Marco would not be a very happy man.

***

While we were witnessing the Polidano saga, another carefully orchestrated attack was being conducted over the sale of property purchased by the Dom Mintoff family for a pittance in the 1980s and resold to the Polidano Group for the sum of €3.6 million.

So far so good, apart from the very obvious fact that everyone likes to read over how much money the socialist Mintoff family actually has.

The real criticism however is that the land in question was ODZ - an outside development zone - before appreciating considerably in value when it was included in the development boundaries.

Now let's just take stock of the situation for a moment. That the Mintoff family is rich and more than comfortable is a known fact, but so are so many other families in the Maltese political world. 

And to insinuate that the Nationalist government went out of its way to accommodate the Mintoff family is also not difficult to imagine. The PN did not exactly need to genuflect before Mintoff to hit out at Alfred Sant, and they had little qualms about seeing the former prime minister pocket over €835,000 in compensation for the Delimara summer house whose view was ruined by the power station.

Indeed, some of the PN sycophants, yeasayers and lèche-cul should look at all the beneficiaries of the ODZs. They should really start listing all the individuals and naming them. Come on... give us the list of people who benefited from the redrawing of the development zones before the 2008 election! Those individuals made a killing, and incremented their asset value by millions of euros.

And don't even suggest that nobody from the Cabinet was involved in the whole experiment of delineating the new development boundaries. The PN never acts in the interests of those who can't support them electorally.

I'm sure Charles Polidano would agree.