Moviment Graffitti wants access to the communication thread between property magnate Joseph Portelli, the planning authority's chief Martin Saliba, and its executive council members.
The NGO said on Friday morning it had filed a Freedom of Information request for all electronic communication between them after the PA earlier this month postponed a decision on a controversial application to build apartments and garages close to cliffs in Sannat.
On that day, the PA planning commission chair had also asked the authority's executive council, which is chaired by Saliba, for guidance on how to interpret relevant policies.
The application (PA/02087/21) to build 73 flats and 60 garages is one of three that will together create a block of 125 apartments just 300 metres from the cliff edge.
A PA case officer has recommended the application for refusal, because the development exceeds the height limit permitted by planning policies.
Objectors say that the owners have split the mega-project into three applications in an attempt to "salami slice" the plans and bypass PA scrutiny.
The next hearing is scheduled for March 1 at noon.
Graffitti said on Friday Portelli and his associates have been allowed to "bend the rules in favour of their monstrous projects".
The NGO claimed the application was passed on to the council following insistent requests from Portelli’s architect during the hearing.
"In light of the commission’s highly irregular decision and Portelli’s track record as a developer who proudly admitted to using politicians to speed up the processes facilitating his greed, Moviment Graffitti believes it is high time the public gets to have access to all correspondence, meetings, emails and other exchanges between all members of the PA’s Executive Council and Portelli."
Graffitti added that the PA is toothless with "sharks like Portelli".
"To begin with, the authority already failed to heed its own case officer’s advice for the first Portelli application in Ta’ Ċenċ, approving the permit in spite of a clear recommendation for refusal.
"In yet another set of piecemeal applications in Sannat, the Planning Commission once more went against recommendations for refusal of its own case officers during the hearing of the third application connected to the same project, ignoring several policy breaches in favour of churning out yet another batch of hundreds of Portelli’s apartments.
"When Portelli conducted illegal excavation works in Qala’s ODZ, the PA failed to take action against a developer who had clearly breached planning laws," Graffitti said in a statement.
The NGO claimed that no action seems to have been taken against extensive illegal works by Portelli right at the edge of the Ta’ Ċenċ cliffs, adjacent to his massive development in Sannat, and which is likely connected to the same project.
Apartments in this project, it added, were being advertised as having landscaped gardens, "a worrying sign for the integrity" of the ecologically sensitive site and public access to the cliffs.
"Faced with overwhelming evidence that shows the authorities have failed to safeguard our land by respecting their own planning policies, Graffitti feels there is no further reason to doubt the only logical explanation: the PA takes its orders from people like Portelli, not from the people who it is supposed to protect.
"We’d love to see Saliba and the rest of the Executive Council prove us otherwise," it said.