Friday, 10th July 2009 - 09:35CET
MEPA reform
Planning and environment should be separate - AD
The MEPA offices in Floriana.
The Mepa reform document presented yesterday was a positive effort which could generate a fruitful discussion, AD's spokesman on sustainable development Carmel Cacopardo said.
He said AD felt that a number of positive proposals were being put forward while others should possibly be reconsidered as a result of the public discussion which was now to start.
MEPA, Mr Cacopardo pointed out, was never a policy maker - it drafted policies for the consideration of government, but the proposal for its detachment from policy formulation/drafting was positive.
Likewise the shedding of responsibilities which could now be shouldered by other bodies set up since 1992 was also positive.
AD applauded the insistence of the reform document on the need to channel negotiations on proposals for development at directorate level and away from the Development Control Commission.
However, it considered that limiting the DCC to a chairman and two members could be too small especially in respect of its dealing with urban conservation areas, outside development zones and major projects. The latter DCC would require expertise in more areas that could reasonably be covered by three persons.
The proposal to appoint a fulltime DCC had its merits in addressing conflicts of interest of current parttime DCC members who were practising their profession.
The basic issue of the manner of selecting of DCC/board members was, however, not addressed by the reform document.
AD had proposed in the run-up to the 2008 election that while the government should retain the power to appoint MEPA board and DCC members these should be subject to a public hearing by a Parliamentary committee to ascertain their suitability, a procedure similar to that adopted by the US senate to vet high level appointments by the US President.
As for the proposal to appoint environment NGO representatives on the MEPA board, Mr Cacopardo said that while pointing out that it did not doubt the good intentions behind such a proposal considered that there were better ways of involving environmentalists in the decision taking structures of MEPA.
AD noted that in 2006 the chairman of an environmental NGO was appointed to the MEPA board, but he resigned not much later.
Even officials of such organisations could have conflicts of interests between their duties as representatives of NGOs on the one hand and as members of decision taking structures on the other hand.
AD noted that the government was insisting on retaining the environment and land use planning as part of the same authority, something about which it had expressed reservations in the past.
Its reservations were based on the limited resources which in the past placed MEPA's Environment Directorate in severe weakness in the MEPA structures, in particular in a position subservient to Land Use Planning.
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Comments
Judges and magistrates although appointed by the Government have what is known as security of tenure, their salaries come out of the consolidated fund so that the Government cannot reduce their salary even by 1 single cent, and they can only be removed by a 2/3 majority vote in Parliament for very serious reasons referred to in the law.
Those appointed on boards such as MEPA do not enjoy any security of tenure and can be removed at the Government's pleasure.
M Gauci
Although I feel certain that political interference exists at MEPA as in other agencies and authorities, MEPA has consistently shown that they totally disregard their own regulations and cannot be relied upon for their fairness. How many times has it been heard and written that an application did not get MEPA approval after so many meetings which I would say amount to serious harassment but then it is submitted by certain architect/s and the same application is approved without any modifications? How can an application for another floor be rejected when all the rest of the buildings in the street including the two adjacent properties were approved?
" . . . what is important is the fact that Board members are to be appointed by Government, the same as at present."
Unless you're suggesting that they be chosen by random lottery, I don't see how you can avoid them being appointed by someone and, ultimately, it is government's responsibility to do so. Even magistrates and judges are appointed by government but nobody imagines that they would have a conflict of interest if government is involved in a court case.
Raymond Camilleri
First of all, 'planning' does not have to be automatically anti-environment - it all depends on the persons who are taking the decisions. Making the EPD a separate entity will not strengthen its influence but, rather weaken it as there will be less interaction with the DCCs and the Board. As it is, the EPD is not just another stakeholder like the MRA or Dept. of Agriculture but an integral part of the Planning Authority itself. The EPD weaknesses have been identified and acknowledged and the reform aims to address them.
On the other hand, the separation of the planning and environment directorates is not necessary. AD says that its opinion is "based on the limited resources" of the Environment Directorate. The reform, however, proposes to address the issue by strengthening significantly the EPD human resources thus effectively removing the basis on which AD has formed its opinion.