Article 102(2) of the Development Planning Act 2016 stipulates that no new electrical or water service can be provided without a compliance certificate. It seems the law only applies to mere mortals.
A compliance certificate is the official document issued by the Planning Authority certifying that the property was built according to the law.
In March 2024, Chief Justice Mark Chetcuti delivered separate decisions about two of Joseph Portelli’s developments. The court ruled that two large swimming pools built on 10,000 square metres of ODZ land in Qala were “illegal and absurd”. The court also ruled that an additional penthouse floor built in Sannat was also illegal. The court’s decision meant that Portelli’s swimming pools and penthouses should be demolished. Those structures are illegal. The whole country knows they’re illegal.
Yet, both the pools and penthouses have been supplied with electricity. The Shift visited Portelli’s illegal pools and found them complete with fully functioning pumps and lights.
There were people swimming. Enemalta provided electricity to both Portelli’s illegal properties. That’s in breach of the law, which states that no property can be provided with water and electricity without a compliance certificate.
To apply for a compliance certificate, an architect submits an application, which must include a site plan, the original planning permit for the development, copies of the approved drawings, including plans, elevations, landscaping and a host of other supporting documents such as clearances and licences from other entities.
The compliance certification is only issued if there are no illegalities and no breaches of planning permit rules. The compliance certificate, drawings, photos, site plans and all other relevant documents are then passed to ARMS Ltd for processing of the request for water and electricity services.
There are only two ways by which Portelli’s properties could possibly have been linked to the grid, enabling him to benefit financially from his illegalities – and they’re both criminal.
The first is the possibility that Portelli had no compliance certificate at all but that Enemalta just gave him his power supply anyway. The second is that the Planning Authority issued a fraudulent compliance certificate stating that both properties were in line with the law, when the PA is fully aware of the chief justice’s rulings.
Which it is, nobody knows. Enemalta executive chairman Ryan Fava was asked repeatedly to explain to the public how two properties everybody knows are illegal could possibly have been connected to the grid.
Fava refused to reply. He is responsible for Enemalta. Prime Minister Robert Abela picked him and gave him special privileged conditions in his contract. Fava should know the law and he knows he’s breaching it by providing energy to Portelli.
The police must know too. Yet, they’ve taken no action either. Through his silence, Fava is covering up for Enemalta, or else he’s covering up for Planning Authority executive chairman Oliver Magro.
Our institutions are brutal with the weak and entirely compliant with the strong- Kevin Cassar
Time and time again, the whole nation has watched incredulous as Portelli literally and metaphorically bulldozed over the nation. As Portelli collects one illegality after another, the institutions collude by shielding him and providing him what he needs. The one institution, the judiciary, that put its foot down and called out his illegalities is rendered toothless by the Planning Authority, which simply sanctioned the very properties ruled illegal by Malta’s highest court.
The whole country knows Portelli is above the law. And the whole country knows why.
Portelli is protected by Labour. He funds Labour. He brazenly organised a fund-raising dinner on the eve of the last general election which Abela even more brazenly attended.
Our institutions are brutal with the weak and entirely compliant with the strong. In September 2022, in the middle of the night, the police raided properties in Marsa housing irregular migrants. Home Affairs Minister Byron Camilleri bragged that the properties were sealed and water and electricity services were cut – there and then.
The minister went further. He threatened people who rent horse stables as residences to migrants that their electricity and water services would be cut “even if the authorities cannot immediately ascertain who owns the stables, they will take action against people who profit off people’s vulnerabilities”.
Another man spent three years without electricity after ARMS cut off his supply due to a disputed unsettled bill. Nikita Zammit Alamango, one of Labour’s stars at ARMS, argued that it was the courts’ fault. That man is not alone. In 2015, 11,700 properties had their power supply disconnected, according to the Regulator for Energy and Water Services’ report submitted to the European Commission. In 2016, a record 11,777 properties were disconnected.
In one such case, Jason Vella owned several properties in an apartment block. Despite reaching an arrangement to pay his unpaid bills, ARMS filed arbitration proceedings against him and, in the heat of July, cut the power supply not only to his apartments but to the whole block, leaving other residents without a functioning lift.
Kenneth Scifo, an elderly gentleman from Qawra, was sent a €2,500 bill on a property he doesn’t even own. Times of Malta couldn’t even locate the property for which the bill was issued. For years, Scifo’s life was rendered miserable. He was sent a judicial letter and was pursued in court for payment. ARMS went ahead and took €2,500 from his account and threatened to cut power in his own residence. Again, it was Zammit Alamango who made things worse – she blamed the gentleman for not replying to ARMS’ judicial letter in time.
This is what Evarist Bartolo spoke about – a law for the gods and another for the animals. Law-abiding citizens are put through hell – pursued in court, their electricity disconnected, threatened and fined – when they have done nothing wrong. Portelli, on the other hand, has his properties swiftly connected to the grid despite being declared illegal by the country’s highest court.
This is the country Labour has created – a country whose institutions are led by Labour loyalists ready to do the party’s bidding, even if it means defying court orders and breaking the law. In the face of clear evidence that a crime has been committed, the police commissioner simply looks on. And Enemalta’s executive chairman, Fava arrogantly ignores the burning questions about how two illegal properties were connected to the grid.
As for Environment and Energy Minister Miriam Dalli, she’s too busy sorting out her friends Steve Ellul and Joseph Cuschieri.
Kevin Cassar is a professor of surgery.