Plans to split the planning authority will make it easier for the government to ruin the environment, Opposition leader Simon Busuttil has warned.
He called on people and environmental groups to beware the haste with which the government wanted to pass legislation before the summer recess.
“The split will weaken the environment,” Dr Busuttil said during a phone-in interview on Radio 101 yesterday.
He did not indicate how the Nationalist Party will vote in Parliament on the demerger of Mepa.
Last year, PN planning spokesman Ryan Callus had said the party was no longer contesting the move to split Mepa but expressed concern it would “relegate the environment to second division”.
Splitting the planning and environmental functions of Mepa into two separate entities was an electoral pledge made by Labour.
Dr Busuttil was echoing concerns made over the weekend by heritage group Din l-Art Ħelwa, which asked for more time for public consultation on the proposed demerger.
The Opposition leader also accused the government of weakening the environment in the new structure plan – known as SPED – which will now come before Parliament for approval.
He reiterated calls for the government to publish the heads of agreement signed with the Sadeen Group, a Jordanian construction company, over the proposed American University at Żonqor point.
But Dr Busuttil also hit out at the “numerous scandals with a whiff of corruption” that have characterised the administration’s first two years in power.
“Not even the corrupt Mintoff-Lorry Sant government had racked up so many scandals in just two years,” Dr Busuttil said.
Listing some of the controversial issues that have dogged Muscat’s administration – the Café Premier bailout, the Gaffarena expropriation saga, the unprecedented bank guarantee the government gave power company Electrogas – Dr Busuttil said taxpayers, honest citizens and the deprived were paying the price for corruption.
“There is a web of corruption with Castille’s blessing,” he charged, adding the PN wanted to prevent Malta from drowning in corruption and scandals.
He said the PN wanted to be honest and serious at a time when many were losing hope in politicians because of the scandals that saw the privileged few benefit at the expense of the rest.
“I don’t ask people to trust me but I ask them to give me the chance to win back their trust,” Dr Busuttil said.
kurt.sansone@timesofmalta.com