Mepa's ethics

George Micallef (The Sunday Times, January 25) questions Mepa's ethical standards. Since his letter is full of misconceptions and thus grossly misleading, I would like to set the record straight without restricting the rights of the public officer to take legal action he deems necessary. The facts are as follows:

The DCC board member, Architect Claude Borg, as co-ordinator of the Valletta and Floriana Rehabilitation Committee, withdraws from DCC meetings for applications that would have already passed through the committee for consultation.

It is only in very rare cases that he remains to vote on applications that would have been submitted for consultation to the committee prior to his appointment as committee co-ordinator.

The authority did not take the matter lightly, as wrongly alleged by Mr Micallef. Once this incident was brought to our attention, it immediately investigated the facts and was satisfied that at no point was there any breach of ethics or irregular behaviour.

On investigating the matter, it resulted that the accusation that Mr Borg left the room to discuss the case with an applicant was totally untrue. Architect Robert Musumeci had nothing to do with the Floriana application that was being discussed - he was neither the applicant nor the architect appearing for the application.

Mr Borg crossed paths with Mr Musumeci after he had been excused by the DCC chairman to attend to another commitment outside of the authority. The fact that a DCC board hearing does not go the way a group of objectors would have liked it does not merit this sort of criticism.

As a public organisation, we are striving daily for higher levels of transparency and efficiency to ensure that every person and institution renews their trust in Mepa. This is our commitment and we will achieve it with the co-operation of many who want to see this through.