Prime Minister Robert Abela has refused calls to start a public inquiry on the death of Jean-Paul Sofia, the construction worker who died in a building collapse at an irregular development site being run by insiders at the Lands Authority, the same government department which owns the land of the construction site. The developer of the site, Kurt Buhagiar is an alleged human-traficker and an officer at Lands.
Robert Abela won’t be indignant on Jean-Paul Sofia’s death because doing so would bring scrutiny on the extensive corruption and rent-seeking that the construction industry operates in with direct support of the government and the Labour Party. This is the nature of authoritarian figures: they are tough on the crime that is visibly horrendous while abetting the concealed crimes that are equally of even more horrendous. So, Robert Abela will be tough on Valletta teenagers bullying people and low-life squalid murderers, but will close an eye to the deaths caused as a result of the corruption of his own government and the rent-seeking regime.
Can’t get more like a literal mafia state than this.
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