The government has denied a claim by the Labour Party’s spokesman on planning that an appeal by the Marsaxlokk council to the BWSC application for an extension to the power station would not be heard by the Appeal's Board.

Mr Galdes said this afternoon that the Prime Minister wrote to Mepa yesterday saying he was applying the call-in procedure within the Planning Act for Cabinet to decide on the appeal.

He said that through his action, the Prime Minister was denying the council and the families it represented from their right to appeal.

But the government said this evening that Cabine would be taking its decision based on the recommendations by the Appeal’s Board. And the letter Mr Galdes referred to was not sent to Mepa yesterday but last July.

The law, which had been there for a number of years, gave the government the right to refer an appeal from an application of strategic significance on a national development to be referred to Cabinet following an extensive process and after the appeal would be heard by the board.

The board would listen to the parties submitting the appeal and then make its recommendations, which would be submitted to Cabinet.

This recommendation would be public and it would be analysed by Cabinet, whose decision would also be public.

It was shameful that the PL’s spokesman, who was also a Mepa employee, had badly interpreted the law.