The case of Victor Scerri is another case where the taxpayer will be paying for MEPA’s mistakes. The case of Victor Scerri is an unfortunate case in that if the applicant was not the President of the Nationalist party, I am sure that that permit would have gone unnoticed and would not have been withdrawn. So now we have two categories of citizens: those who are public citizens and those who are “ordinary” citizens. I qualify ordinary because it takes more than just “ordinary” to obtain an ODZ permit by MEPA.
But these so-called ordinary citizens, who are not in the limelight but just as powerful, still have the connections and control at MEPA and their ODZ permits do not irk any of the political parties’ bigwigs.
Victor was very unfortunate indeed: we know that he does not speculate land and he wanted to do what many of his colleagues and members of the opposition have been doing for a very long time – build a farmhouse in an idyllic place.
We all remember Louis Galea, Charles Mangion, Anton Refalo, Pietru Pawl Busuttil and Ninu Zammit. They must all thank MEPA for having the luxury of an idyllic place in Malta and Gozo, something that we must all envy and wish that we had all the resources to do it.
We remember cases of “mistakes” defined by MEPA in granting more floors than the approved scheme, so that the developer got away with the mistake and the officials responsible either resigned or remained but in both cases they got away with murder.
So there was nothing strange in Victor’s doing and he will be right in suing MEPA for first approving the permit and then withdrawing it. Just as the owners of the site in Lija will be right in suing MEPA for first including the area within the scheme (most probably without ever going on site), and then, because the Lija local council intervenes (when such work should have been done by MEPA), MEPA realises that it made a mistake and withdraws the permit.
These things only happen in totalitarian states, where the citizens never know what to expect, and not in a democratic country. The problem is that the mistakes done by MEPA will be borne by the taxpayer, because I am sure that they will be awarded damages and we will be the one paying for them and not those who did not do their job well.
In the Lija case: you buy land worth X because it is within scheme and you thought you could develop it; you get the MEPA permit because the land is within scheme; the local council realizes that MEPA was absurd in including that land within the scheme, and protests – rightly so – and finally, MEPA withdraws the permit so that the land is now worth much less.
Not only that but the owners in the same street who declared their inherited land with the Commissioner of Inland Revenue obviously estimated their land to be within scheme and paid thousands of euros in taxes when now, those who do so pay much less.
So what is going to be the position of the CIR – will it be reimbursing the tax paid by these owners because their land was put within scheme by mistake?
The Lija owners are therefore right in suing MEPA for damages... only the gurus at MEPA should be the one to pay, and not us!
In Victor Scerri’s case, Victor was given the permit and MEPA withdrew it because it had to be Labour and MEPA’s auditor to draw MEPA’s attention to the fact that the permit had been issued illegally.
I am sorry, but MEPA’s rules did not change between the time of giving the permit to Victor Scerri and now. So why did MEPA need to be reminded of its own rules and regulations by Labour and by the auditor?
This is a case when the members of the DCC are supposed to be the government’s buddies, and if they put the government to shame they ought to pay the price – and not the taxpayer.
Let us be honest – it is not the first time that the internal Auditor of MEPA has highlighted these flaws – we had the case of a villa instead of a pig farm belonging to Safi mayor Pietru Pawl Busuttil; we had the case of an owner of a block of apartments who illegally built an extra floor over 10 years ago, and despite a pending enforcement notice, the developer managed to sell some of the illegal apartments and these were even provided with electricity and water supply (Auditor’s report, April 2009).
In September 2008, the MEPA auditor also expressed the view that the appointment of Roderick Galdes, as the opposition’s representative on the MEPA board, went against the provisions of Article 3(5)(b) of the Development Planning Act, which forbids public officers from serving on the MEPA board, and claimed that Galdes’ double role as MEPA employee conflicted with his role as MEPA board member, but nobody challenged the law.
We have been promised more transparency at MEPA ad nauseam. George Pullicino introduced amendments to the law in 2007, giving MEPA greater powers to control illegal development, and he promised us that if an illegal building is constructed outside the development zone after May 2007, an application for its sanctioning can no longer be submitted before the illegal structure is removed.
He also promised us a new Appeals Board to focus solely on illegal development. In this way, he said, enforcement cases should be decided within six weeks, and will not have to wait for all the other appeals.
I will leave it to the readers to conclude if these promises have been kept, and I am sure that they are sceptical about the proposed MEPA reforms because it is not what is written on paper that is important, but that what is written is abided by and is enforced.
There are laws stating that if you have an illegal development, no further development can be considered, but this is not applied in all cases by MEPA. There are laws stating that if you submit a false application, the permit will be withdrawn; but again this is not enforced by MEPA. There are laws which say that if you have an illegal development you can get no water and electricity, but then MEPA diluted this to mean only that apartment in the block which is illegal cannot have the utilities, and so on and so forth.
People are sceptical about any reform at MEPA because until the officials remain the same and unaccountable, they will continue to flout MEPA rules subjectively.
Let me finish by telling you of a permit for a washroom which was given in an ODZ area before the elections and the case is still awaiting the decision of the MEPA Appeals Board.
The MEPA rule is that washrooms in ODZ can only be given to residents. The applicant was not a resident and not even the owner of the property; and yet the permit was granted and years later the case is still not concluded. Only that in this case MEPA did not have the pressure to withdraw the permit and the objector is being treated as a normal citizen and when you are treated as a normal citizen by MEPA you do not get a hasty process as in the case of Victor Scerri or Pullicino Orlando.
This is why I say that for once, public figures are at a disadvantage!
Any comments?
If you wish your comments to be published in our Letters pages please click button below. Please write a contact number and a postal address where you may be contacted.
Download front page in pdf file format
All the interviews from Reporter on MaltaToday's YouTube channel.
So now we have two categories of citizens: those who are public citizens and those who are “ordinary” citizens. I qualify ordinary because it takes more than just “ordinary” to obtain an ODZ permit by MEPA. 
