Labour MP Marlene Farrugia yesterday voted twice with the Opposition in favour of amendments to the Environment Protection Bill, being discussed at committee stage.
Dr Farrugia, who later resigned from the Labour Party and its parliamentary group, described her vote as one on behalf of the people in line with the PL’s electoral proposals for transparency and accountability.
It came at a particular juncture, she said, when the environment was at a crossroads.
The government was missing the opportunity to move away from the opaque governance of the previous administration, she charged.
The vote was preceded by robust debate on the role of environment NGOs in the appointment of members on the environment authority board and of the authority’s chairman.
The Bill proposes a board composed of eight to 10 members, including the chairperson of the authority. The remaining members would be two public officers representing the government, one with experience in environmental matters and another conversant in environmental health or social policy.
The remaining ‘independent members’ would be persons of known integrity with experience in environmental voluntary organisations and in the functions of the authority.
Opposition environment shadow minister Marthese Portelli suggested that a minimum of three of the “independent members” should be chosen directly by environmental organisations.
Moreover, a member should be nominated by the leader of the Opposition, in line with the provisions of the planning authority.
Government agreed with the proposal to include a member to be nominated by the leader of the Opposition. Environment Minister Leo Brincat expressed the government’s trust in the environment voluntary organisations and its commitment to consider seriously persons they would propose.
However, he believed that the government should maintain the flexibility to nominate suitable persons who may not necessarily be members of an NGO and to address a scenario where the voluntary organisations might fail to agree on members of the board to be nominated.
This would be an opportunity to show trust in the voluntary sector
Dr Farrugia agreed with the Opposition’s amendment. This would be an opportunity for the government to show its trust in the voluntary sector, that the sector would make good choices.
The move, she added, would be in line with Labour’s electoral manifesto proposal that the public should have the opportunity to elect certain board members.
The other Opposition amendment supported by Dr Farrugia dealt with the appointment of the authority’s chairperson. The Bill proposes that he or she should be chosen by the minister from among its independent members.
Dr Portelli proposed instead that, while the minister would nominate the chairperson of the environment authority, he or she should be approved by Parliament following a hearing by the Environmental and Planning Committee.
Ryan Callus (PN) indicated that the Opposition would make the same proposal on the chairman of the new planning authority. There were no such appointments in Malta, Mr Brincat replied. He did not agree that such changes should take place at a single-institution level. In any case, the parliamentary committee could scrutinise the workings of the environment authority and its chair.
In endorsing the proposed amendment, Dr Farrugia said that democratic institutions should be used to serve the national interest and that the citizens desired better governance.
The Opposition proposed an amendment in line with the recommendation put forward by the Commissioner for Environment and Planning within the Ombudsman’s office that the state of the environment report should be prepared by his office. It said the report should be tabled and discussed in Parliament eventually.
Mr Brincat said the government was convinced that the technical people and experts who had worked on the previous reports would keep working in a correct and exhaustive manner.
Mr Callus remarked that these experts could remain involved in drawing up the report but supervised by the Ombudsman’s office, which enjoyed the trust of both sides of the House. The government rejected this amendment.
Several other amendments were unanimously approved, including that the authority should be called the Malta Environment and Resources Authority. A decision on other proposals was postponed. The debate was adjourned for Friday.
The Environment Protection Bill
The Environment Protection Bill, whose first reading was held on July 22, 2014, formed part of a set of three that will lead to the demerger of Mepa.
The other two are the Development Planning Bill and the Environment and Planning Review Tribunal Bill.
Introducing the Environment Protection Bill in the second reading last July, Minister Leo Brincat said the law would ensure a new authority that would be focused on protecting the environment and improving the sector, assuming the role of an effective regulator.
Opposition leader Simon Busuttil recognised the government’s electoral mandate to carry out the Mepa demerger but did not agree in principle with it. He said that the government wanted to demerge Mepa only to centralise power in Castille.
The Environment and Planning Commissioner within the Office of the Ombudsman expressed his opinion that the proposed environment and planning amendments were a significant step backwards with regard to transparency, accountability and access to public scrutiny.
In a letter to the Prime Minister and the Opposition leader, commissioner David Pace recommended amendments to the proposed bills to improve the people’s participation level and to make the authority more open to public scrutiny.
Alternattiva Demokratika also disagreed with the proposed Mepa demerger, saying it would lead to institutional fragmentation. Human and financial resources would be spread thinly over two authorities, weakening effective environmental governance.
As a small country, Malta actually required defragmentation, reinforcing effective environmental stewardship, said AD.
Since land use was one of the main environmental pressures in Malta, planning and the environment should be tackled holistically, according to Din l-Art Ħelwa. The proposed legislation did not offer any environmental benefits.
The involvement of environmental expertise during the processing of planning applications would decrease and no additional remedial environmental safeguards in the planning system were being proposed, said the NGO.
The new planning authority seemed to be divesting itself of all environmental responsibility, however decisions on land use were also environmental decisions. Safeguarding the environment should remain one of the key responsibilities of the new Planning Authority, it argued.
The NGO proposed an assessment of the regulatory and environmental impact of the proposed demerger, prior to the final decision on whether to separate the environment function from the planning function.