The Union Haddiema Maghqudin and the Environment and Planning Authority Professionals Union ordered industrial action yesterday after the Malta Environment and Planning Authority (Mepa) had ignored the unions and stood firm on “performance objectives”.

In a joint statement by the unions, Mepa employees were instructed not to accept meetings with the public, consultants, applicants and architects and told that no form of communication, such as by fax, telephone or email, was to take place.

The unions said that the performance objectives demanded went against the collective agreements and the principles on which Mepa was founded.

The objectives, they added, were putting more pressure on the staff to increase the authority’s annual revenue by one million liri over 2005-2006.

Mepa was also imposing a reduction of the number of pending applications by 3,000 – a decision that was in contrast with Mepa procedures, when the number of regulations and policies were constantly on the increase.

Mepa’s management was not increasing the resources available nor implementing the restructuring process that had been agreed with the two unions and the Management Efficiency Unit in the Office of the Prime Minister about a year ago, they added.