Over a number of years, the planning authority’s enforcement function has lacked an adequate level of resources and administrative capacity, according to a report by the Auditor General.
The report, tabled in Parliament last night, says Mepa’s enforcement function was not supported by documented strategic and operational policies.
This caused the authority to react to prevailing circumstances rather than being able to proactively target areas that pose the highest planning and environmental risks.
Consequently, these circumstances impinged on case processing consistency and efficiency.
Resource deployment priority was generally allocated to other functions, such as its planning arm.
Mepa still has to recover 84 per cent of the costs it incurred since 2006 to remove illegal structures at the owners’ expense, according to the report.
Recent efforts to strengthen its enforcement function for Outside Development Zones (ODZs) demonstrated that this important role was still evolving.
The 2010 Mepa reform was the most recent effort to address enforcement-related issues.
However, various factors prevented the authority from fully implementing “the polluter pays” principle or adopting a zero tolerance approach regarding environmental and planning infringements within ODZs
The Enforcement Directorate, established in 2011, inherited an enforcement function characterised by a backlog of cases, including 2,065 outstanding executable enforcement notices.
Moreover, its administrative processes were prolonged and delayed the conclusion of cases.
Only a proportion of the required funds were made available for Direct Action initiatives. In many cases, this prohibited Mepa from taking the necessary action to remove irregularities itself, at the contraveners’ expense.
In addition, the authority is still to recoup around 84 per cent of the invoiced expenses with respect to direct actions taken between 2006 and 2012 within the ODZ.
This amounted to €438,329 up to March 2013.
The Audit Office said the Enforcement Directorate still lacks the support of a comprehensive Information Technology (IT) infrastructure.
Such a situation hinders operational throughput, prohibits the formal application of risk analysis in enforcement work, and does not enable the maintenance of robust audit trails.
IT-related concerns have also weakened management control over the enforcement function.
The report said Mepa was encouraging those who broke the law to regulate themselves.
Since November 2012, this had been supplemented with the introduction of daily fines, up to a maximum of €50,000 when the authority’s directions were not heeded and irregularities prevailed.
The long-term success of these initiatives was, however, dependant on the enforcement function being supported by the appropriate organisational structures and the internal control framework.
A copy of the report is available on the NAO website.
Meanwhile, during yesterday’s Parliamentary sitting, the Prime Minister said pending refunds to be paid by Mepa to applicants whose applications had been approved amount to €1,070,284.33. Dr Muscat was answering a parliamentary question by Claudio Grech (PN).