The approval of the permit for the dB City Centre project on September 20 was supposed to bring to an end the whole saga surrounding this project.
I sincerely hope that this is not so and that the battle against this project, which stinks on multiple fronts, is yet to start. Here is the chronology of this stinking affair:
February 2, 2017: It was not the developers who announced their intentions from their company offices. No sir, it was Joseph Muscat himself who, in his official capacity as Prime Minister, presided at a ceremony in his official seat at Castille, stating that: “We need quality hotels to attract quality tourists who are ready to pay more.”
February 2017: We find out that the proposed site, which had been valued for over €200 million by independent experts, had been given to dB by Muscat’s government for a down payment of €6 million and the remaining score of millions or so would be paid over the years for years to come through a complicated mechanism that possibly goes against EU procurement laws.
March 2017: We learn that the dB Group illegally financed the PN to the tune of at least €70,000 and allegedly paid for the salaries of both the PN secretary general and the PN’s CEO.
March 2017: We find out that PN deputy leader Mario Demarco was on the team that had negotiated the ridiculous contract giving away the public site to Debono for peanuts.
December 2017: Adrian Delia’s PN organises its Christmas fundraiser at Silvio Debono’s dB hotel.
May 18, 2018: Prime Minister Muscat is adamant that the project must be approved. If there are things to be changed they should change, but the project must go on. “Asked whether he agreed with the planned development, Muscat told Malta Today that it was not a matter of being for or against it, but what was important was to ensure it was done in a sensible manner.”
May 30, 2018: The PN’s Delia says he would support the ITS project “if it is in line with planning policies”.
August 10, 2018: Opposition Leader Delia secretly meets representatives of dB, to obtain “first-hand information” on their projects, including the St Vincent de Paul one.
September 11, 2018: Delia states that he has not studied the dB project because he is not the one to be voting at the September 20 sitting.
September 18, 2018: Delia announces that the PN will vote against the project. He seems to have studied the whole project in just a few days now, employing the usual legalese play on words to which Dr Delia has now accustomed us to.
May 18, 2018: Prime Minister Muscat is adamant that the project must be approved
September 20, 2018: The vote is taken at the Planning Authority meeting: 10 for; four against.
September 25, 2018: We find out that the Planning Authority executive chairman Johann Buttigieg had authorised the outlay of €8,750 for a private jet to ferry in and out of Catania the PA board member Jacqueline Gili, who voted yes. All this despite the fact that on the same day, Air Malta had comfortable direct flights to and from Catania, at 7.15am, with return flight at 10pm.
September 26, 2018: The Shift News reveals that Matthew Pace, who voted in favour, owns a real estate agency which was selling apartments in the City Centre project on behalf of dB. A clear undeclared conflict of interest.
September 27, 2018: Malta Today reveals that PA board member Clayton Bartolo’s father and uncle “are shareholders in a watersports company that operates under the brand name Oh Yeah, and runs its business from the quay of Silvio Debono’s Tunny Net complex in Mellieħa, 200 metres away from Debono’s Seabank Hotel”.
This non-disclosure by Labour MP Clayton Bartolo may go against Article 63(4) of the Development Planning Act, 2016. 63(4), which says that “…no person shall be qualified to be appointed as, or remain, a member of the Planning Board if he… (e) has a financial or other interest in any enterprise or activity which is likely to affect the discharge of his functions as a member of the Planning Board”. Bartolo has denied a conflict of interest.
In 54 years since Independence and supposed sovereignty, the two parties that have always been in Parliament have led the country to this stinking rot. Are we Maltese going to let them continue doing so? For the sake of your children, I really hope not.
Arnold Cassola is former Alternattiva Demokratika chairman and former secretary general of the European Green Party.
This is a Times of Malta print opinion piece