Mepa chairman boasts of increased timespan efficiency

The planning authority has processed the majority of applications received within 12 weeks, as promised in the reform process, according to chairman Austin Walker.

In a review of the Malta Environment and Planning Authority’s work yesterday, he stressed that this year was dedicated to the successful implementation of the reform.

Mepa is now planning to process even the most complex planning applications within 12 weeks, even though the reform’s target was 26.

Comparing the regulator to a referee in a football game, Mr Walker said it was expected that all contentious decisions would be contested by those affected negatively.

However, he was confident that even the most difficult decisions were taken diligently by Mepa.

Although fewer applications were being filed, Mr Walker said the reasons behind this were complex and could not simply be pinned down to higher fees.

Applications now go through a screening process to ensure that all the necessary information is there.

“There is none of the rubbish we used to see before, clogging up the system,” he added.

CEO Ian Stafrace explained that Mepa had also changed the system by which it was financed by the government.

Instead of asking the government to fill its annual shortfall, Mepa is now costing the services it provides to the government and invoicing accordingly.

Mepa provides a number of services to the government in terms of environmental monitoring, enforcement, consultancy and much more.

In this way, the government allocated the money it gave to Mepa based on what it would have to fork out if it did the work itself or outsourced elsewhere, Dr Stafrace said.

This also helped ensure accountability and transparency internally.

He pointed out that Mepa had set up an enforcement directorate, which this year issued 600 enforcement letters and carried out more than 50 “direct actions”.