No police presence stepped up in Mnajdra area after PA enforcement notices served
Investigations into the barbaric vandalism at Mnajdra are continuing and the theories as to the possible reasons for this savage act increase day by day. Government sources told The Malta Independent yesterday that the Planning Authority had served 14 enforcement notices on illegal rooms and bird hunting hides that were constructed in the vicinity of the unique temples.
And, as news of the notices spread, people started asking why the police were not informed about this matter and why security had not been stepped up.
The Planning Authority, The Malta Independent was told, had served these notices following a request from the Museums Department.
The question being asked by people who spoke to this newspaper is why Police presence is always stepped up when a stop notice is served on boathouses, for example, and nothing was done to increase security in such a vulnerable area as Mnajdra after the serving of similar notices.
The notices to the hunters and trappers in the area were personally handed to individuals in the first week of April. At the same time, a farmhouse which was illegally built very close to the temples was demolished.
Sources told The Malta Independent that the focus of attention has also shifted to quarries in the vicinity
Although investigations are not believed to be concentrated in this direction, Education Minister Louis Galea said no potential avenue of investigation is being ignored.
Dr Galea added that this was an attack on the State and one made by people who were probably angry at the government because of the administrative measures it had enforced.
Meanwhile, senior government sources told The Malta Independent that an alternative site had already been found for one quarry operator and they were also in the process of agreeing on an alternative quarry for the second quarry owner.
The quarry owners had been stopped from carrying out their work in 1997 by the Planning Authority. On that occasion police had to be brought in when the owners refused to stop operating.
The decision to stop the quarrying was taken by the Planning Authority after calls from the Museum Department and Fondazzjoni Wirt Artna among others, which claimed that the quarrying was having an adverse effect on the temples' structures.
Sources confirmed yesterday that pressure had been mounting from both sides of the political arena to grant permission to the quarry owners to continue work in the vicinity of the temples even though this was constantly being refused by the Museums Department.
In 1999, Fondazzjoni Wirt Artna had published a statement which reported that two quarry owners had been exerting pressure on the government to grant them more permits to extend their quarries closer to the Hagar Qim and Mnajdra Temples.
The FWA director Mario Farrugia had said that this would have very negative effects on the temple. In fact the foundation had written a letter to Home Affairs Minister Tonio Borg asking the government to refrain from granting further quarrying facilities in the area.
