Audit officer's inquiry damns DCC board

In a damning report, the Malta Environment and Planning Authority's Audit Officer has severely censured the Development Control Commission Division A for granting an outline development permit to turn a parcel of virgin land in Mistra, owned by Nationalist MP Jeffrey Pullicino Orlando, into a discotheque.

In a detailed report that the audit officer Joe Falzon sent to the Prime Minister yesterday, a copy of which was distributed to the media in the evening, Mr Falzon lists all the reasons why the outline development permit should not have been approved.

It was Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi who had asked Mr Falzon to look into the matter after it was unearthed by Labour leader Alfred Sant during the MLP's general election campaign. The case is also being investigated by the police after Dr Sant claimed corruption. Dr Gonzi had also asked the police to investigate.

The full development application for the site PA 7752/07, based on outline development application PA 5880/05, has now been withdrawn by the applicant on Dr Pullicino Orlando's instructions. He had continually denied any wrongdoing in the case.

Dr Pullicino Orlando, a dentist, was returned from two districts in the March 8 general election but he was not among the new blood that the Prime Minister has injected into his new Cabinet.

The Mistra application was in fact the most damning of a series of charges made by the Labour Party during the campaign, with Nationalist Party secretary general Joe Saliba telling the weekly Illum that had the timing by Labour leader Alfred Sant been finer, it would have lost the PN the election.

In his report, Mr Falzon said the DCC failed to abide by the Development Planning Act provisions when they went against the recommendation of the Planning Directorate without justifying their actions on planning grounds.

He said the DCC allowed a development that manifestly goes against planning policies; they created a dangerous precedent that would allow development outside development zones not in accordance with established policies, in particular the provisions of the Structure Plan and the Local Plans; they ignored the provisions of the EU Habitat Directive; and they failed to consider the possibility, "highly likely" in the audit officer's own words, that this type of development needs an environmental impact assessment (EIA).

In an earlier part of the report, Mr Falzon writes: "Indeed, they (the DCC) assumed that they could decide policy rather than enforce it".

Mr Falzon notes that no action is being recommended against the DCC board as in the meantime the board has resigned.

The mass resignation did not involve the Mistra permit. The board members had said they felt aggrieved by the audit officer's comments in another report over their approval of the permit for a supermarket in Safi.

Regarding the Mistra permit, Mr Falzon asks: What led the DCC to take these steps?

He argues that the DCC had more than enough warning of the illegality of their actions. Yet they failed to submit the slightest justification for their decision.

Mr Falzon then moves on to underscore the role of consultees in the decision process. The report by the Malta Tourism Authority (MTA) definitely had a bearing on the decision by the DCC, Mr Falzon wrote.

"Why did the MTA choose to write a very long report to justify the proposed development? They definitely had access to the document presented by the applicant to the Mepa as substantial parts of it are taken, sometimes verbatim, from this report.

"Why did the MTA choose to write such a biased report where the negative environmental implications of this development are completely ignored?"

Mr Falzon recommended that the Mepa board should henceforth issue instructions to the director of planning that when he believes an application is likely to be approved contrary to policy, he would inform the Mepa chairman who would transfer the application to the competence of the Mepa board.

Approving such an application outside development zone would open the floodgates for other owners to apply, leaving Mepa with no justification to refuse.

Where a permit is approved on land that was originally valued as an agricultural holding, turning it over for commercial or other use, "accusations of corruption are inevitable and difficult to refute", Mr Falzon noted.

During the campaign mounted by the Labour Party based on this case, Dr Pullicino Orlando followed Dr Sant wherever he was to address the media in what turned out to be a cat and mouse game with Dr Sant keeping the details close to his chest whenever Dr Pullicino Orlando appeared on the scene.

This jockeying for a confrontation by Dr Pullicino Orlando culminated in the latter being provided with a Press Card by the Department of Information when Dr Sant was to address a press conference at the Broadcasting Authority offices in Blata l-Bajda. In the end the BA told Dr Pullicino Orlando that he could not stay before Dr Sant walked out of the recording of the press conference.

The Mistra case came as a surprise to many people as Dr Pullicino Orlando had in the past taken upon himself the role of environmental crusader.

The Sunday Times reported that government officials and planning board members who approved the Mistra development have told police investigating the case that Dr Pullicino Orlando had urged them to "keep an eye" on and facilitate the application process.

In a police statement seen by The Sunday Times, Dr Pullicino Orlando is said to have started calling about the application a few months before it was approved, on behalf of someone called Dominic.

This individual has been identified as the man to whom Dr Pullicino Orlando was leasing the land in question and who in turn rented the land to Ian Sultana, who filed the application for development.

The land in question measures 2,000 square metres in an ecologically sensitive area earmarked as a potential Natura 2000 site.