Parliamentary Secretary Ian Borg’s position became “untenable” following the endorsement by the corruption watchdog of a report about his property, the Nationalist Party said yesterday.
In the report, issued a few weeks ago, the Ombudsman recommended a review of the permit issued to Dr Borg for two properties in the limits of Rabat after it was established that “the complaint that policies were incorrectly applied... is justified”.
“While no evidence or attempts of corruption in terms of criminal law were found, this does not absolve Dr Borg from shouldering political responsibility over the irregularities flagged by the Ombudsman,” PN deputy leader Beppe Fenech Adami said.
The Commission Against Corruption had been asked to look into a series of irregularities raised by the Ombudsman regarding a planning permit issued for a plot of land on the outskirts of Rabat for which previous development applications had been turned down.
In a media briefing at the party headquarters in Pietà, Dr Fenech Adami noted that the commission did not contest the Ombudsman’s remark that Dr Borg had chosen a “somewhat devious method” to file the development application.
“In addition, the Ombudsman found that the planning authority had removed the only possible justification on which it could have refused the proposal and that certain policies had been applied incorrectly,” Dr Fenech Adami said. He poiinted out that calls for Dr Borg’s resignation had been made by various environmental groups.
Meanwhile, the Malta Environment and Planning Authority yesterday again criticised the Ombudsman’s report saying that it was not possible to make a like-with-like analysis of two applications, one of which was refused and the other (Dr Borg’s) of which was accepted.
“The Ombudsman’s entire argument is based on comparisons between the two permits – which simply do not exist,” Mepa chairman Vincent Cassar told a press conference.
The Ombudsman’s entire argument is based on comparisons between the two permits – which simply do not exist
Under the policies in place, a site qualified for redevelopment if it were already committed, whereby the existing building had a footprint greater than 50 square metres and was not worthy of retention.
Mepa said it had evidence that, in the case of the rejected 2012 application, the footprint of the existing building was just 35 square metres and, therefore, below the set threshold.
In the case of the application filed later, and which was accepted, the footprint was 95 square metres and constituted 75 per cent of the site due to the change in the boundaries of the proposed project.
This, Mepa argued, constituted a key “material difference” between the two applications, which the Ombudsman failed to take into account.
The planning authority also said that an earlier 2005 application on an adjacent site was ignored by the Ombudsman even though it constituted a commitment and material consideration which Mepa was bound by law to consider.
“Had this comparison been made, the Ombudsman’s conclusions could have been totally opposite,” Mr Cassar said.
The Ombudsman’s Office yesterday declined to comment on the findings of the Commission Against Corruption but published the submissions it made to Mepa’s remarks as part of the investigations.
The Ombudsman noted that the permit should not have been issued because it the proposal included a tract of “fresh land”, which under no circumstances could have been developed, unlike the rest of the plot that had been already committed.
Nevertheless, it added, this “fresh land” was completely omitted in the analysis carried out by Mepa when considering Dr Borg’s application, contrary to what had happened three years earlier when it had turned down a separate application for development on the same site.