MEPA has issued two enforcement orders in the past two years against tuna industry magnate Charles Azzopardi, for illegal works on an outside development area in Triq it-Targa in Maghtab.
The illegal works have continued in defiance of the law, and the presence of cranes was noted on the site by MaltaToday on Friday.
The first enforcement order was issued against “the illegal clearing of land”, and a change of use of the land from agriculture to a “place where nets and fish farm equipment are being stored” was issued in October 2007.
Another enforcement order was issued against “the construction of a boundary wall”, and the use of the place for storage of fish farm equipment, was issued in May 2008.
Just a month after the first enforcement order was issued, Charles Azzopardi applied to demolish three existing buildings to replace them with two warehouses, as well as offices on the land in question.
In February 2008 Azzopardi – whom, it transpires in today’s front page story, is also an intimate friend of Environment Minister George Pullicino and of the former MEPA Chairman, Andrew Calleja, again applied to replace an existing boundary wall and fix a gate. A month later an application was presented to construct a cold storage facility for the use of the so-called “St Peter Foundation.”
None of the pending planning applications make any reference to the illegal works. MEPA cannot approve any new development until current illegalities are either removed or sanctioned.
Curiously, the MEPA website shows that the enforcement orders issued against Azzopardi “are pending application to sanction.” Yet no application exists to sanction the illegal developments in Maghtab.
By the time of going to press, MEPA had not answered MaltaToday’s question on why the enforcement orders are pending an application to sanction, when no such application actually exists.
This is not the first time that Azzopardi is in breach of planning rules.
In September 2001, the Planning Authority board voted in favour of granting a permit to double the number of tuna penning cages operated by Azzopardi Fisheries in St Paul's Bay, despite the existence of a number of illegalities on the same site.
On that occasion the MEPA board’s decision was taken a month after a previous vote, in which the same board had opposed the development.