When Joseph Muscat first became prime minister in 2013, he decided to retain the planning portfolio within his own office. The reform of the Malta Environment and Planning Authority was one of his major electoral pledges.
Muscat selected MP Michael Farrugia as parliamentary secretary for this area, within the Office of the Prime Minister.
Soon afterwards Muscat appointed Martin Saliba, an employee then working at MEPA’s planning directorate, as chairman of the Environment and Planning Review Tribunal.
This is supposed to be an independent and impartial body handling appeals against decisions taken by the authority.
To assume this role at the tribunal, Saliba was granted unpaid leave by his employer. In other words, Saliba remained attached to the same employer and manifestly intended to return to his duties once his term at the tribunal ended. In fact, Saliba is now back at the Planning Authority in his latest role as executive chairman.
The potential conflict of interest in having an employee chair the tribunal set up to hear appeals filed, against decisions of his own employer, is plainly evident. A very serious mess in the planning sector could be rising to the surface.
Saliba’s continued attachment to the Planning Authority was not widely known until it was revealed by Times of Malta last week, after the information was first disclosed in a court sitting. The strong negative reactions of environmental NGOs, architects and the opposition were immediate.
Saliba’s dual role has been described as a “gross miscarriage of justice” which potentially “denied citizens recourse to an impartial hearing” with “a system rigged against them”.
The NGOs have hinted that they might challenge some of the tribunal’s major decisions taken under Saliba as chairman. This could, for example, target the appeal against the permit for the office tower at Mrieħel known as Quad Towers. The designation of Mrieħel as a high-rise zone is already controversial due to the way it was included in the policy in 2014 after the public consultation had already closed, as instructed by Farrugia in his role then as a junior minister at the OPM.
Farrugia had sent his instructions to the PA shortly after a meeting that he held at Castille with Yorgen Fenech, as has been revealed in documents obtained by the Daphne Caruana Galizia Foundation.
This timing has fanned the flames of controversy since Fenech, as part of Tumas Group, was one of the main developers of Quad Towers together with members of the Gasan family. The same individuals are also shareholders of Electrogas, and promoted and built the gas power station at Delimara when Muscat was prime minister.
These undesirable coincidences will not be readily overlooked by the public, and interest in further scrutinising the Quad Towers project is growing.
Saliba’s potential conflict of interest – in his chairmanship of the tribunal that refused the NGO appeal against the permit granted by his own employer the Planning Authority – may lead to a fresh contestation.
The perceived conflict of interest of a planning board member on the db Group’s high-rise project in St George’s Bay led to the annulment of its permit by the courts. If decisions taken by Saliba at the tribunal are contested, who is ultimately responsible? Accountability is key to good governance.
This case could turn out to be another catastrophic legacy of Muscat’s administration. The tribunal chairman’s potential conflict of interest should have been understood and flagged from the start.
This is the result of the same disdain and disregard for standards in public life that led to Muscat’s downfall.