The construction lobby has to be curbed, not strengthened

This is my column in today’s The Malta Independent. It is about how the construction lobby does not have natural power, but power which the political parties willingly cede in its favour.

This is all the more dangerous when you’ve got a governing party which thinks that it is in control of the situation because it sees what it does as “striking deals”, when in reality what it is doing is derogating the power of the government to a group of real-estate developers and builders.

The Nationalist Party should not make the same mistake of running after these individuals, and should learn by its experience with Silvio Debono that men like these, and the murkiness they represent, are political poison in the present and a bomb waiting to detonate in the future.

Sandro Chetcuti at one of the venues operated by Hugo Chetcuti (no relation)

Silvio Debono with the Maserati car he travelled abroad to buy some weeks ago in the company of Ivan Portelli, director/admin for income tax, VAT and customs