Dire need for enforcement

Abstract

Enforcement has always been our islands' proverbial Achilles heel, with laissez-faire and complacency fuelled by the need for electoral votes stamping out any effective attempt at curbing this phenomenon - the environment is no exception to this. The Malta Environment and Planning Authority's ranks have been buoyed by recent recruitments and from this I take the cue to highlight the dire need for enforcement in our country. The monthly statistics issued by MEPA are quite elaborate in the message they convey - it issues between 50 and 100 stop and enforcement notices, on average, each month. Quoting from the figures for September, 94 such notices were issued, and a staggering 41 sanctioning notices were meted out. The term sanctioning is quiet elusive - although derived from Latin sanctio, meaning a decree or law, it resides uncannily close to another dictionary word, 'sanctimonious', which means to make a pretence of holiness.