The public inquiry on Jean-Paul Sofia has been well constructed to prevent it from delving into major structural problems of corruption, the shady companies behind the Real-Estate Mafia, collusion between government and Labour Party interests, and the well-entrenched power and influence of the construction industry over public entities. The chairman of the public inquiry has also been chosen by the Prime Minister without any consultation and the terms of reference were also written by the OPM. One latest example that I brought about this issue was David Xuereb who heads the MCESD, but is actually fronting the interests of the construction industry.
Apart from being a director at the Building and Industry Consultative Council, David Xuereb is also Chairman of the Occupational Health and Safety Authority, so he is responsible for ensuring that cases like that of Jean-Paul Sofia don’t happen at all. Yet, David Xuereb is being absolved by the pro-Labour press by, as usual, quoting and legitimising his “opinions”. Indeed, David Xuereb should instead be scrutinised and investigated for abetting the rampant jungle rules in the construction industry that led to an increase in the deaths of construction workers.
Like David Xuereb there are many others that are representatives of the construction lobby and that are embedded with government entities. Another example is Carlo Mifsud who is a director at the Malta Developers’s Association. Apart from being a director at LANDS, he is also, bizarrely a member of the Council of the University of Malta. The MDA is led by Michael Stivala and hired Joseph Muscat as one of its consultants.
Carlo Mifsud was also CEO of LANDS before he stepped down to help the government establish its construction regulatory entities, including the entity of which David Xuereb is a director (BIC). And if you need further evidence that the government is filling these important public roles with the wreckless and greedy representatives of the construction lobby, then read this story about the actual Chairperson of the Building and Construction Authority, Maria Schembri Grima who had to resign from her post following the revelation of a story that one of the construction projects she was leading in her personal capacity was a serious risk to neighbouring residents. It’s remarkable that there are those who think that the individuals of this racket can have any legitimate “opinions” and what should be done.
They are all fronting their own interests and that of the construction industry as a whole in an exuberant atmosphere of greed and impunity. This is why David Xuereb called Adriana Żammit, the architect accused of manslaughter to console her instead of fulfilling his public roles in the interest of the public, and ensuring that the likes of Adriana Żammit don’t commit manslaughter.
Remarkable how they get away with it so easily while ordinary people have to pay the consequences of the actions of these imbeciles, sometimes even with death itself.
As the first CEO of the Lands Authority Carlo Mifsud was a huge dismal failure on all fronts. Carlo Mifsud was the CEO who introduced the supposedly online system for applications which turned out to be an absolute flop, as clients still had to download hard copies of the forms, fill them in manually and send or deliver them personally to the Lands Authority. Meanwhile all back office processing of such forms was done manually. He was eventually forced to resign by IB and transferred to the fledgling BIC. Under his watch the Lands Authority was deprived of directive 7 due to the irregular employment of scores of employees. Under his watch the Authority’s website was also hacked and a massive data breach occured. At that time Keith Mintoff was the Senior Manager responsible for the Lands Authority’s IT systems. Keith Mintoff now heads the IT systems of the MFSA.