The Prime Minister, Konrad Mizzi and Carmen Ciantar aid and abet the theft of public land
Carmen Ciantar, Jeffrey Pullicino Orlando’s second estranged wife and now CEO of ARMS Ltd, with the man who handpicked her for the no-call-for-applications position, energy minister Konrad Mizzi
The Prime Minister, Konrad Mizzi and Carmen Ciantar, chief executive officer of the state utilities billing agency ARMs, have devised a novel way to aid and abet crime – the theft of public land.
There is a report on Times of Malta’s front page today.
The prime minister said he is doing this because he cannot tolerate the theft of electricity. The theft of public land, clearly, is all right with him.
Ciantar is not quoted in the report at all, though the news peg for that report is the regulations which the agency she runs, ARMS Ltd, has just published, favouring those who have squatted on/stolen public land for several years.
Ciantar’s own selection for the job is itself questionable. She was handpicked by energy minister Konrad Mizzi without a public call for applications. At the time she was working in the advertising sales office at Yellow Pages and was unemployed for a while before that after the development company owned by the Montebello brothers, where she worked in their sales office, went bust.
Ciantar, a Labour Party activist and lead member of Nisa Laburisti, married Jeffrey Pullicino Orlando two years ago after living with him for more than a decade, when they were both able to divorce their estranged spouses under the new law. She left him a year later after discovering that he had been carrying on with another Labour activist, Lara Boffa.
As her salary from the Yellow Pages sales office was not sufficient to allow her to start a new life in the manner to which she had been accustomed, the Taghna Lkoll gravy train stopped at her station and found her a financially comfortable position on the state payroll.
Given that this is a sinecure, she is now not in a position to object when the prime minister and Konrad Mizzi order ARMS to accommodate those who squat on and steal public land, and accommodates them instead.
Interestingly, the very woman who could have advised Carmen Ciantar not to marry Pullicino Orlando at any cost, her predecessor, first wife and mother of his two children, Labour MP Marlene Farrugia, has something pointed to say about the matter in her article in The Malta Independent today:
Only yesterday I met an exhausted hardworking mother of four who is still paying back, back breaking monthly instalments on her electricity backlog bill after her supply was disconnected pending complete settlement of utility bills she could not afford.
She asked me to explain to her how she was made to pay, while ‘owners’ of Armier, St Thomas bay shacks who had seized public land, built illegally and stolen electricity are not only NOT being asked to pay back their dues but are being rewarded by regularising them.
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How do I get a map that shows which areas of Malta are public property? I need to squat on a big piece of land with a nice view, apply for electricity and water meters, build myself a zoo, a swimming pool and a large house.
try Castille square
Are you a prominent Laburist or switcher? If not, I would not advise it.
Hello White Coat. I saw your interesting question and I thought I’d provide some tips.
PREPARATION: Time was when you would start everything by purchasing a pair of sturdy hiking boots. Since then, the government has kindly built surfaced roads to everywhere. SO just get in your car and drive until you find the best, most spectacular view ever. It will probably have magnificent sea views and be conveniently close to a beach, possibly smack bang in the middle of a (fancy that!) nature reserve. Note the spot and mark it with a used beer can.
EXECUTION: Over the next few weeks, you will drive a convoy of heavy vehicles to your chosen spot, carrying all manner of construction material. The stronger, the better. Remember: you are Maltese, and the Maltese take no shit, so you build for posterity. A man’s home is his castle and all that. Concrete, reinforced, is your material of choice.
Start small: a couple of bedrooms, a kitchen, a living room for you 40″ TV, and a patio (essential, this!). Find the closest power line and connect your abode to the grid once the roof is in place. One floor will do for now. Later, you can add more.
FINISHING TOUCHES: Dress down! Scruffy shorts and a baggy, torn wife-beater, flip-flops (barefoot is better) and a fat mother-in-law add ambience and transform your new home into what romantics call a “boat-house”.
Then just visit every Sunday, lay back in a deckchair and do nothing. Remember to turn on your TV (you will have installed a satellite dish) and watch Manchester United vs Whoeever. Set your TV to max. volume. You’re not doing things on the sly, remember. You are Maltese, you take no shit, and heqq m’ghandekx dritt tgawdi l-bahar bhal haddiehor?
CONCLUSION: Repeat this for about ten years and your new illegal sha—er, your home will be perfectly legal. De facto, if not de jure. A treasured family heirloom to hand to your offspring.
NOTE: If you’re unmarried, you will of course visit your new seaside resort with Ritienne/Ritienszczka, in which case the pool becomes indispensable, and the shorts and wife-beater are replaced by speedos (swimming trunks are so 90s), shades and not much else.
The ridiculous thing is that one needs a MEPA certificate of compliance to install a water/electricity meter in a new building.
There a many people who bought property from contractors and were refused permit cause said property was not built according to plans submitted to same authority. These people are now the owners of property which will not be serviced by Enemalta and have to battle it out with the contractors in court.
The installation of smart meters in boathouses is certification that the property is now regularised, no matter how much Muscat protests to the contrary.
Again, it’s their fault. They should have asked to be on a Labour billboard before attempting to buy such property.
If I may, from Tigne’ Point to Armier.
The Labour Party stole Australia Hall in collusion with the Labour government, so it follows that this same government will allow the squatters to steal public land and let them have a metered electricity supply. It’s honour amongst thieves, so no surprised looks please.
And what about those who have a room at Ghadira (those wooden structures next to the Bird Sanctuary) ? They are there legally and pay a rent of just under a hundred euros.
Bot the government has now told them that the new rent is five hundred a year. Can somebody supply more information, please ?
Where are the Opposition?
That the land is stolen is acceptable to all even to Muscat. Now if Muscat says that they were stealing electricity, believe him. Electricity is not transmitted through the air, it has to be supplied by cables to these thieves.
So, Muscat, your simple solution was to cut the supply and nobody will be stealing electricity any more. Just remove the supply cable.
Israel has used a very simple technique to take over the West Bank (and that’s slightly larger than Armier). Not the guns and bombs that feature in the news. But squatting. Literally. Or inventing stories like having an old Jewish temple or cemetery beneath the spot being occupied.
In Malta, this happens literally when one takes a piece of God’s land and figuratively when one accosts a political party and builds a castle inside its walls.
And the citizen outside is occasionally asked to stand up, march and vote.
I don’t mind paying bills, but I don’t like paying bills for others whether in Malta, Israel or Beijing.
Both Israel and Malta are depressing worlds to be in. Between them lies the same lie.