Parliamentary Secretary Ian Borg made a classic U-turn in the ongoing saga regarding work on property he owns in Rabat - he first arrogantly said that he will carry on with the project in spite of a report by the Ombudsman saying that "devious and deliberate" methods were used in the granting of the necessary permits, but later backed off after Prime Minister Joseph Muscat, in comments to the media, said he would have acted otherwise.
Prime Minister Joseph Muscat disagreed with a comment by Parliamentary Secretary Ian Borg that work on property in Rabat will continue despite an Ombudsman report damning the project. The report was revealed in The Malta Independent on Sunday last Sunday.
Asked if he would have done the same, Dr Muscat said that he would have suspended the work until the investigation is concluded.
When asked whether he would stop Dr Borg, Dr Muscat said the matter was up to Dr Borg.
Dr Muscat said the investigation would not take long and he would comment on the subject when the times comes.
It did not take long for Dr Borg's answer to come, as the beleaguered parliamentary secretary obeyed his boss minutes later, announcing on the socil media that works had stopped.
Writing on Facebook, Dr Borg said that although he is reiterating that he has done nothing wrong, and that he has a "legitimate and valid" permit, he said that he has suspended all work on his private residence and looks forward to the conclusion of the investigations.
Dr Borg said that the works were stopped as from yesterday, but he uploaded his comment on Facebook after the PM's comments to journalists this morning.
Earlier
Parliamentary secretary Ian Borg said he will carry on with his building project in spite of an investigation by the Commission Against Corruption following a damning report by the Ombudsman about his “devious and deliberate” methods in obtaining a permit.
The Ombudsman ruled that the permit was issued because of a grave error on the part of Mepa and should be reviewed.
But Dr Borg said he will not put his project on hold while the investigation continues, adding that the permit was issued regularly.
He would not be drawn into saying whether he had offered his resignation to the Prime Minister, saying that Dr Joseph Muscat had said he would explain what Dr Borg said were inaccuracies in the Ombudsman’s report.
The report, revealed exclusively by The Malta Independent last Sunday, spoke of how Ian Borg used his father’s name and that of a project manager as the property’s owners instead of Dr Borg himself, who is the actual owner.
The Ombudsman’s report also found that the Development Permit Application Report (DPAR) drawn up by a Malta Environment and Planning Authority case officer contained a “series of omissions and variation in the text” that “cannot be put down to human error but point to a deliberate attempt to remove the one remaining obstacle potentially blocking approval of the application”
The report, seen by The Malta Independent on Sunday, also finds that with a dubious change to the classification of part of the plot being developed by the junior minister in Rabat’s picturesque Santa Katerina valley: “the Mepa removed the one possible reason – and a very strong one – for refusing the proposal, thereby facilitating its approval”.
Dr Borg insisted that he did not try to conceal his identity and that the application was filed within the parameters of the law.
After the publication of the report in The Malta Independent on Sunday, environmental NGOs said that the position of Parliamentary Secretary Ian Borg is untenable. They call on MEPA and the Office of the Prime Minister, responsible for MEPA, to take immediate and ongoing measures to weed out such corrupt manipulations and put into effect systems to ensure accountability and transparency, in order to regain respect from both the public and the law-abiding workforce within the authority.
The Nationalist Party has also called on the Prime Minister to take action on Dr Borg, saying that the Ombudsman’s report is shocking and scandalous.