The Chamber of Architects said Wednesday that it never requested an apology for itself or the members of its Council, but for all “periti who wasted a week of their professional time, their dignity trampled on, as well as to their clients whose hopes were needlessly raised through the extensive PR.”
The chamber was reacting to a report on MaltaToday which said that Planning Minister Stefan Zrinzo Azzopardi has refused to apologise to Kamra tal-Periti over the controversial rollout of the Irrestawra Darek scheme.
“The only thing the Kamra tal-Periti (KTP) president asked to be changed was the time when the scheme is rolled out. He only requested we change it from 8am to noon,” Zrinzo Azzopardi told journalists on Wednesday.
The online application platform collapsed under the surge of users trying to submit their applications. KTP labelled the entire system as a "farce", insisting the Planning Authority apologise. They said the much-anticipated launch of the Irrestawra Darek scheme resulted in frustration and disappointment for architects and their clients.
In a statement Wednesday, the chamber said that the first time Council members heard of the scheme was on 19 May at 3.30pm; the day the scheme conditions were communicated to all periti via email.
“Our immediate reaction was of shock and dismay as we noted that the date and time chosen seemed to intentionally clash with the seminar organised by the Kamra regarding the Santa Luċija judgement to which the PA was invited. We raised our concerns with both the Minister and the Executive Chairperson about this, and asked for the opening to be shifted by a day or at least moved to 2pm.
The Minister’s response, according to the chamber, was that he was only willing to shift the opening to 12pm. However, we never got direct confirmation of this shift until Monday, when an email sent out to all periti confirmed the change in time – causing a general scramble across the profession and in the organisation of the seminar.
Given that the scheme conditions had been formalised, there was clearly no scope for integrating the recommendations about the 2019 edition the Kamra had given former Ministers for Planning Ian Borg and Aaron Farrugia, as well as former PA Board Chairperson Perit Vince Cassar, and former Executive Chairpersons Johann Buttiġieġ and Martin Saliba, among others.
“It is indeed unfortunate that none of the aforementioned provided a proper handover to the current Minister and Planning Authority administration. It would have certainly averted the debacle in this year’s edition,” the chamber said.
Had the handover been made, or the Kamra consulted, “the Minister would have been made aware of our objection to the first-come first-served basis as well as other negative elements of the scheme,” the chamber said. The first to benefit from the Kamra’s recommendations, as always, would be the Minister and the affected authority.
“Despite the above, we welcome the fact that Minister Zrinzo Azzopardi is finally considering reopening the scheme after taking our recommendations into consideration.”