Exactly 24 hours after the expiration of the deadline set by Carmel Cacopardo to Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi to publish the MEPA report on the Sant’Antnin recycling plant, the report was published on AD’s website at 5.30 pm yesterday.
Cacopardo, who until 31 March last year was employed as an investigating officer with MEPA’s internal audit officer, had compiled the report on 7 February last year.
Speaking during a press conference in front of the Sant’Antnin recycling plant an hour and a half earlier, Cacopardo said that although the report was still a draft version, the investigations on the case had been concluded.
Asked by MaltaToday to comment about the fact that he had published the report despite the objection of MEPA internal audit officer Joe Falzon, Cacopardo said: “As I have already said in my blog, (…) I have a lot of respect for Perit Falzon. Falzon made that declaration because he respects the authorities. I also respect the authorities, but there is a point when I make other considerations.
“If the authorities have failed to live up to their obligations, I have the moral right to proceed,” he said.
Pressed as to whether there were political calculations behind the publishing of the report, Cacopardo, who will be contesting the forthcoming general elections on the third electoral district, which includes Marsascala, where the plant is located, said: “No, I am not doing this out of political considerations. I am doing this because I have a moral obligation to do so.”
“This is a matter of public interest. Various persons have been chasing me to leak the report without mentioning my name for some time now. For me, I had to be responsible enough that if I publish the report, I do so personally.”
Asked whether the publishing of the report constituted a conflict of interest, Cacopardo said: “If there is anybody who has a conflict of interest in this exercise, it is Minister George Pullicino, who took part in the meetings with the case officers while they were processing the applications.”
On his part, Pullicino defended the choice of the Sant’Antnin site for the recycling plant. He said that the Cacapardo report itself concluded that “it is very unlikely that at the end of the day any substantially different decision could have been arrived relative to the Sant’Antnin project.”
Pullicino also defended his presence at the meetings between Wasteserv and MEPA case officers about the Sant’Antnin project. “Please note that this is a Government project,” and “I am the Minister responsible for waste management,” he said curtly.
“In no way can anybody reach the conclusion that the Government was given a preferential treatment when one considers that the application for this facility took five years to be approved by MEPA,” he insisted.
If one examined Cacopardo’s report and MEPA’s replies to it, it was clear that Cacopardo showed “gross incompetence” and, “worse than that, prejudice in his writing,” Pullicino claimed in his reply.
This, he said, led to various incorrect conclusions in Cacopardo’s report.
Pullicino said Cacopardo’s actions were “wrong and a gross violation of ethics” and accused him of thinking “that he is above the law”.
Pullicino said the fact that Cacopardo published his report now, in the midst of an electoral campaign in which he is contesting on the same district where the recycling plant is situated “clearly shows his partisan motives.”
On its part, immediately after the Cacopardo press conference drew to a close, MEPA published a 12-page document in which it replied point by point to the former MEPA investigator’s report.