News | Sunday, 14 December 2008

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MEPA reform begins... with time warp

James Debono
The long-awaited reform of the Malta Environment and Planning Authority has produced its first concrete result: that of changing the authority’s calendar year.
As of 2008, MEPA’s financial year will not end in September, as has always happened to date, but in December – a fact made known to MaltaToday after enquiring why MEPA had not yet published its annual report, normally scheduled for November or early December at the latest.
The MEPA spokesperson acknowledged that in previous years this was always the case because MEPA’s financial year ended in September. “As of 2008, for administrative and practical financial purposes our financial year will start ending in December, so our annual report will be published end of January 2009.”
Effectively this means the financial year which started in September 2007 has been extended by three months, making the year in which the Prime Minister took over the beleaguered institution the longest one in its history.
The annual report always includes a brief but pungent report by MEPA’s own ombudsman Joe Falzon. Unaware of the change of MEPA’s calendar year, Falzon had already written his own report which he has already presented to the Chairman. “I was only informed of this change after I presented the report,” Falzon told MaltaToday.

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