The Front Harsien ODZ this morning accused the government of taking the country back to the 1980s with the demerger of the Malta Environment and Planning Authority into two entities.
Addressing the media in front of the Prime Minister’s office in Valletta, spokesman Michael Briguglio said ministers would once again have the power to override a planning decision with the touch of a pen.
The front, he said, had a number of concerns on the MEPA demerger, including the fact that it made it easier to build on ODZ land, enforcement and transparency would become even weaker than they are today and NGOs would be given a smaller say on planning matters and would only be able to appeal on certain development. Political interference will also increase.
The Environmental Protection Directorate would also be reduced to nothing more than a government department which could be consulted by the planning authority.
Dr Briguglio said that, while he understood that the government was the policy maker, the fact that certain posts would be filled by political appointments was very worrying. “MEPA is supposed to be autonomous but it seems we are returning to the 80s, when ministers had absolute power over the authority.”
Dr Briguglio said Prime Minister Joseph Muscat had promised before the election that the demerger would favour the environment but this was clearly not the case. “The environment will not gain anything out of this demerger. While the demerger was listed in the PL’s electoral manifesto, giving these extravagant powers to a minister was not.”
He argued that the powers conferred to the minister in the demerger coupled with the “flawed” SPED document could easily lead to more development on ODZ.
The Front Harsien ODZ spokesman said today marked the end of the deadline for feedback on the demerger. Dr Briguglio said the front has sent its feedback today. The three bills related to the MEPA split will be discussed during a parliamentary committee after the summer recess. “We will continue giving our contribution at that stage but we hope that this will not just be a formal process that leads nowhere,” he said.
The front’s appeal to the government, he said, was to stop acting like a steamroller and become a government that listened to civil society.
Zonqor
Replying to questions by this paper, Dr Briguglio also insisted that the front had “certainly not forgotten” Zonqor Point and the proposed American University of Malta on ODZ land.
Last week it was reported that the government was mulling plans to site the university in the Cottonera area but it was not clear if the entire campus would be relocated, or just a part of it. “We remain vigilant on the issue. When we were asked for our opinion on a Social Impact Assessment on relocating the AuM to Cottonera we made it amply clear that we would not accept any part of the campus to be built on ODZ land. Not even a millimetre.”