When is a business deal not just a business deal?
Some people wrote in to ask what could possibly be wrong with Yana Mintoff and her sister Anne McKenna selling their land to Charles Polidano’s company for EUR3.6 million, with a schedule of pending payments and so on.
It’s just business, they said. Doesn’t Yana Mintoff have the right to sell her land?
When you’re a politician, you have to be careful with your business deals. We really have had enough, haven’t we, of the John Dallis of this world.
But let’s leave him and his Sargas consultancy and the plant he’s trying to sell to the incoming Labour government out of the equation for now, and stick to Yana Mintoff.
Read the story below. And then ask yourself whether Yana Mintoff, when she is in government, is going to be in a position to clamp down on any such wrong-doing or even stand up in parliament and ask questions about it, either in government or Opposition.
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timesofmalta.com, yesterday
MEPA SEALS OFF DEVELOPMENT AT POLIDANO BROTHERS HEADQUARTERS
By Mark Micallef
The Polidano Brothers construction group has had two illegal outdoor storage depots sealed off by planning authority enforcement officers early this morning.
Sources said there was a tense scene during the action at the company’s headquarters and a company official was arrested.
Over the past years, the contractors, brothers Charles and Paul Polidano had been illegally dumping hundreds of tons of rubble in the fields behind their headquarters to develop a massive scrap yard and storage depot which encroaches further onto a nearby fireworks factory which belongs to the Ta’ l-Istilla band club of Luqa.
In recent weeks, the company had started developing a concrete structure.
The authority had slapped the company with an enforcement notice back in 2009 for the illegal dumping but escalated the action after The Times started investigating the case last week.
The site in question has seen several illegal development ever since work begun in 1991 until the headquarters, which cover some 45,000 square metres started receiving sanctioning and permits from 2004 onwards.
In 2005, the authority gave its go ahead to a gas plant, which stands less than 140 metres away from the fireworks factory. With this latest development, the boundary walls of the storage depot bring the distance down to less than five metres at some points.
MEPA STATEMENT
In a statement, Mepa said it had placed concrete blocks to seal off the sites which were being illegally used by the developer to dump inert material, scrap and other vehicle parts together with the placing of heavy plant machinery and precast elements. In one of the sites, the developer recently started construction works without any permit and was immediately stopped.
A police officer has been stationed to prevent any further illegal development.
Mepa said that earlier this week, following several warnings, it requested the police to initiate criminal action against the developer for abusively carrying out a series of developments within the Hal Farrug area without the necessary planning permits.
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Spot on Daphne,
These past four years have resulted in the subject, Caqnu’s sustainability, to become a taboo.
Labour may well have promised the Polidano Group it can go back to its old ways – remember Armier and Xemxija bypass.
Labour missed the meaning of 2004 and abhors the no-nonsense attitude of GonziPN.
If one had to look at the two ‘proposals’ on JosephMuscat.com, I’m sure certain links can be made. The question is, how many of the thousands of empty flats, let alone entire blocks, belong to Polidano?
Is it true Caqnu can hold the whole country to ransom by threatening to do a Goliath? If so, why has Joseph’s Labour chosen to play along in this perverse game?
And don’t give me Zaren on a yacht to justify using Polidano to bash everyone on the head.
It’s not in the country’s, nor Caqnu’s, interest.
Next time you owe the government any taxes, Jozef, just threaten to lay people off. Works like a charm, every time.
Veru gvern bahh,
These people should be stopped immediately and not 4 or 5 years after they commit every illegality in the book.
UPDATED STORY HERE: http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20120914/local/Press-charges-against-Polidano-says-Mepa.436854
Before the Monte Cristo estate at Ħal-Farruġ was built there was a small dilapidated farmhouse surrounded by fields.
Building permits in ODZ to replace dilapidated buildings must adhere to the same footprint. Was this observed in the case of the Monte Cristo estate?
Is the whole estate covered by a valid building permit?
Clamp down and ask questions in parliament? Like heck she would when there are 3.6 million at stake.
It would be interesting if someone had to shed some light as to which banking institution/s finances the Caqnu deals. The exposure to property lending must be worrying to say the least in this market.
“Is it true Caqnu can hold the whole country to ransom by threatening to do a Goliath?”
The banks are terrified of him in case he threatens to sack employees, And then it’s a domino effect right up their backs.
Banks? BANKS? How about national governments?
Banks and national governments. The reason for their fear is different but fear just the same.
As you said in another comment further up, threathening to lay people off works like a charm.
Do you think that she might consider taking over the banks once again when she is part of the government?
I mean, it runs in the family.
Let us not forget that Caqnu and Co grew bloated in size and bulldozed their way up under successive PN governments. Now they smell the wind of change and are making plans for the future: Futur Biex Inkomplu Jghaqduhom.
I think that MEPA should only sanction something if it is something trivial not a whole complex outside the development zone, and then again if you sanction once then you should not sanction a second or third time. I think that if this is the way MEPA is working then no wonder our country is looking more and more like a jungle of buildings.
Such persons threatening the whole politcal and economic system should never have been allowed to become so mighty.