Butchers in the boardrooms – Wayne Flask
On Friday, 27 May, Hayrettin Kok, 49, a father of three, died after falling from three floors at a construction site between Testaferrata and Triq Enrico Mizzi, Ta ‘Xbiex. He was identified only after his peers posted on social media, with some Turkish news sites reporting that he had been in Malta since 2019.
One thing that the local news sites did not report is that the site in question is a contentious 15-storey tower developed by none other than Michael Stivala, president of the Malta Developers Association.
Stivala, speaking in soft, bloody tones like a missionary on his way to the Congo, took a silent promise of another death. Kok’s was the second of the year so far, which has also seen an increase in injuries at various building sites.
Last year, nine workers died and more than 2,300 were injured – shocking figures confirming how the construction industry, more than a ‘catalyst for growth’, is a giant meat grinder for hundreds of imported and sufficiently paid foreign workers such as Kok. At least, we got to know his name.
Instead, the MDA roadshow has seen this all-around lobby divert attention from what is happening in their sprawling Weld West. The cowboys wore their best suits and rode to distant and distant places such as the Office of the Prime Minister and the Presidential Palace: here the Rev. Michael would find his many tongues to recite n the narrative of his nausea.
Both shows give us a better look at Sandro Chetcuti’s ‘successor’. On May 11, two weeks before Kok’s death, and two weeks after a 25-year-old Syrian worker met his untimely death in a development of St. John, Stivala and the group of men His cheerful met with the prime minister and some of the best members of his cabinet, including the ministers for planning and the environment respectively.
According to their somewhat ungrammatical press release, the MDA “demanded” a political commitment to avoid bureaucracy. This was a recurring complaint from construction honchos, who make a not-so-covered case for complete deregulation of the sector at every opportunity.
They issued similar statements in 2014 and 2016, even after the newly elected Labor government split MEPA in two as part of a promise to “cut red tape”. Now, they have the cheeks to make demands.
Stivala selected LESA and the newly formed Building and Construction Agency as the contributors to the “extra bureaucracy that is consistently declining Maltese and Gozitan (sic) entrepreneurs.”
He then went on to patronize the environment minister by lamenting the poor state of the rubble walls and roads, voluntarily ignorant of the fact that members of his own lobby are net contributors to the general ills of the islands. ours, especially wherever they demolish, develop, and darken under concrete floors.
Then came the coup de grace: “Stivala emphasized that when we talk about the environment, we have to look at the big picture and not just object and criticize private development based on envy and selfishness.”
Their intrinsic arrogance makes them think that everyone wants to be like them, and so they face the classic accusation of envy towards the residents while shattering their quality of life.– Wayne Bottle
Their intrinsic arrogance makes them think that everyone wants to be like them, and so they face the classic accusation of envy towards the residents while shattering their quality of life.
Take the Island, Sliema and Msida: you are lucky to pass through the maze of closed roads, ugly towers coming out of nowhere, dust, noise and congestion at any time of the day. Lovin Malta’s Planning Web shows that Stivala has at least 44 planning permits pending, approved or executed in these three cities since 2015.
I wonder if it was envy or selfishness that brought the MDA to criticize the public land concessions given by the Muscat administration to the db and Corinthia.
However, the MDA forgot to mention the sale of a public alley in St Julian’s to Anton Camilleri ‘of the French’ for a scandalous € 130,000, despite the € 1m valuation and its strategic importance for its project. ‘Villa Rosa. Stivala’s soul must have been badly beaten by the lack of “level playing fields”, but I almost forgot to mention, Camilleri is a member of the MDA board.
Robert Abela rewarded their cheeks appropriately: in the race of vetoed boards but mostly nominated by an increasingly paranoid Castilian, the BCA sees one of Joseph Portelli’s architects at the helm, with OPM adviser Ian Borg as her deputy.
It’s no secret that the MDA and Portelli don’t like each other, but that’s another war fought in silence behind the scenes. However, Stivala and his people got what they wanted: a weak BCA would not only benefit Portelli, whose alleged illegalities are known to everyone, but also the rest of the industry which intends to erase any concept of to enforce.
In the evening after the MDA gig at Abela, a Turkish worker fell from an 18-meter hole on the site of the new Verdala hotel. The directors of the Royal Hotels include Denise Micallef Xuereb, Stivala’s vice-president.
The next day, developer Carlo Stivala (Michael’s brother) was making headlines for scaffolding left hanging in the Balluta.
And yet, they complain of excessive rules.
He recounts that the OHSA, in December 2021, was able to count only 35 staff members in its workforce despite the alarming numbers of injuries and deaths. Perhaps this is the kind of paperwork the MDA would like to do without as well, while receiving state aid to get its members to improve their machinery, or extended construction times in residential areas.
Shortly after Kok’s death, Stivala was to sit on a panel at the President’s conference on the State of the Nation which represents Malta’s most deadly industry, as the numbers confirm. The ‘value of life’, including that of hundreds of exploited workers, was not on the agenda.
There is little consolation for Kok’s family, another victim of greed greeted by routine, statistical indifference.
Similarly, thousands of workers on whom the industry values have little to lose, except, possibly, for their own lives.
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