Mepa auditor may reopen case

The Malta Environment and Planning Authority's audit officer may look into the Mistra case again in light of fresh allegations implicating "a Mepa/ministry official" who allegedly pushed for the issue of the controversial permit to be expedited.

In one of the latest twist of this seemingly never-ending saga, tourism consultant George Micallef claimed on Monday that the protagonist in this case, Nationalist MP Jeffrey Pullicino Orlando, and this unnamed official had "collared" him into a meeting on the case with two Development Control Commission (DCC) members (one of them the chairman) who later eventually approved the permit application.

The case, in fact, pivots on the development permit given by the DCC for an open-air disco on ecologically-sensitive land belonging to Dr Pullicino Orlando, against the express advise of Mepa case officers.

An audit report requested by the Prime Minister shortly after Labour revealed the case in the final week of the election campaign severely criticised the decision. Beyond the audit report, however, The Sunday Times revealed that in the police investigations - which are still pending - Mepa board members and government officials said in sworn statements that Dr Pullicino Orlando had called asking them to "keep an eye" on the application and facilitate the process.

Mr Micallef's statement went one step further by implicating the Mepa official.

Labour's online newspaper, Maltastar.com, named him as Lawrence Vassallo, a Mepa official and former member of then Environment Minister George Pullicino's secretariat. The minister, however, has denied that a member of his secretariat "ever spoke to, or pressured George Micallef".

Mr Micallef himself refused to name the official when contacted, saying he had nothing more to add to what he had said in his statement.

When contacted about the matter, however, Mepa's auditor Joe Falzon, who did not deal specifically with this issue in the report released on March 17, said he will go through Mr Micallef's statement carefully and, if need be, will look into the case again.

"I only found a request by the DCC to have a consultation meeting with the MTA ," he said about the meeting that Mr Micallef was supposedly collared into, but added: "I'll look into it and if there is something of relevance I will speak to the people involved to see exactly what happened."

The brief meeting, Mr Micallef said, "revolved around how the MTA could support the Mistra application and about the MTA's pending application concerning the Mistra bay rehabilitation".

In his report, Mr Falzon said the MTA "definitely had a bearing on the decision".