The citizen has given up trying to approach Mepa - developers

The Malta Developers Association (MDA) said today it was surprised that Mepa Chairman Austin Walker has claimed that there is an increased efficiency in the processing of development permits.

"He has arrived at this conclusion by ignoring the fact that the number of development applications submitted to Mepa this year is only a fraction of the number in previous years and that, moreover, Mepa’s making requests from applicants at pre-submission stage has simply shifted the time for the collection of this information to this stage when applications are still not registered and not considered as submitted by Mepa."

"He has also ignored that the current economic climate in the property market has led to a large decrease in applications for substantial developments. The situation has deteriorated so much that, unfortunately, the citizen has given up trying to approach Mepa," the association added.

It acknowledged that in its regular meetings with Mr Walker and Mepa officials, Mepa had shown that it was ready to consider revising certain procedures to improve its efficiency but, the association said, it then dragged  its feet before putting these changes into practice.

Moreover the decision that Government would be being invoiced by Mepa for services it provided was an admission of the total failure of the Mepa reform that was heralded with the announcement that Mepa was going to be self-sufficient and would no longer need a government subvention.