Bertu Pace, the consultant to Agriculture Parliamentary Secretary Roderick Galdes, has been suspended as the police have launched investigations into the controversial permit for his daughter for a villa outside development zones in Siggiewi.
The police have confirmed they have started looking into the case to assess whether laws have been breached. The move follows an investigation into the permit after the Times of Malta flagged suspicions surrounding the planning authority’s approval of the development of a 280-square-metre villa on some 10,000 square metres of agricultural land.
The permit was issued in the name of Roderick Farrugia, the son-in-law of former Labour MP Bertu Pace – now Mr Galdes’s consultant.
The investigation by the Agriculture Department led to Mepa starting procedures to revoke the permit. Yet the Agriculture Parliamentary Secretary – whose consultant is at the centre of the investigation – has repeatedly refused to publish the findings.
Last week, the secretariat said the report would be published after Mepa takes its decision. Despite Mepa’s move, another request by this newspaper for the report was refused. The reply stated it “will be published in due course”. A spokesman said it was sent to the Ombudsman’s office and Mepa.
The Sunday Times of Malta has revealed that the investigation had concluded that Mr Pace had worked with a director general within the ministry to forge a document that enabled the approval of the permit.
You may appreciate that, within the public administration, disciplinary actions or lack of them are always dictated by stipulated public service regulations
When asked whether any disciplinary action was taken with regards to people involved in the case, the spokesman had said: “You may appreciate that, within the public administration, disciplinary actions or lack of them are always dictated by stipulated public service regulations.”
Yet it has now emerged that Mr Pace has been suspended until the process stipulated by public service regulations has been finalised.
The letter at the heart of the investigation was an official document from the Agriculture Ministry signed by Stephen Galea, who described himself as a vet support assistant. Yet, investigations by this newspaper showed Mr Galea was in fact listed as a “labourer”, a position he still held when the permit was issued.
During the application process, Mepa had been expected to refuse the permit. The situation changed when his letter from the Agriculture Department was presented to the board at the eleventh hour, saying that what was an abandoned garage-like structure had actually once been a farm. This allowed the permit to be issued under the provisions of the rural policy.
Mepa’s decision was communicated a day after the Times of Malta filed a freedom of information request with the Agriculture Parliamentary Secretariat for a copy of the investigation report.
Lawyers who spoke to this newspaper said forgery by “a public officer or servant” was a crime punishable by imprisonment for a term lasting between six months and three years. The law refers to “whosoever, in order to gain any advantage or benefit for himself or others, shall, in any document intended for any public authority, knowingly make a false declaration or statement, or give false information”.
Meanwhile, Mr Galea acquired a permit for a winery in Bidnija last Wednesday, in what objectors said was an “obscene” move. The application was also controversial and had been dragging on since 2002.
caroline.muscat@timesofmalta.com