Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1050749
4 maltatoday | SUNDAY • 11 NOVEMBER 2018 NEWS JAMES DEBONO TWO cases of alleged conflict of interest for the Planning Au- thority board members Mat- thew Pace and Labour MP Clay- ton Bartolo feature among 18 reasons presented in an appeal against the approval of the DB group's 38-storey tower in Pem- broke. The appeal has been filed by 17 appellants which include residents, NGOs and three local councils – Pembroke, St Julian's and Swieqi. The appellants insist that Clay- ton Bartolo should have declared his father's and uncle's owner- ship in a watersports company which operates in the Tunnynet complex, owned by DB group chairman Silvio Debono, and should have "recused" himself from participating in the deci- sion. They refer to the code of ethics applicable to all public officers, which defines a conflict of in- terest as one where a public of- ficer has "sufficient personal or private interest" which may "be perceived" to influence him in the exercise of his or her duties. The code of ethics obliges public officers to declare any such con- flict to their superiors. MaltaToday flagged the po- tential conflict of interest, but Bartolo had insisted that he was under no obligation to declare interests by close family mem- bers. "I have no financial interest in the company, which has exist- ed since 1985 before I was even born, and the company involved simply rents its premises from Tunnynet and does not receive any payments from it," the MP had said. The appellants questioned Bartolo's impartiality due to a political activity connected to his electoral campaign held in the DB group's Seabank Hotel in May 2017, before Bartolo was appointed to the PA's planning board. The appellants have also ques- tioned the compatibility be- tween financial services broker Matthew Pace's interest as a co-owner in the Swieqi branch of property agents Remax, and his membership in the planning board. His failure to declare this DB appeal: high-rise decision vitiated by conflicts of interest interest is also being deemed to be in breach of the code of eth- ics for public officers. They said Pace, who owns Ze- nith (formerly MSFP) financial service, "has a direct and clear interest in an activity which may conflict with his position in a board which has quasi-judi- cial powers," and said the con- flict should have disqualified him from serving on the board of which he has been a member since 2013. The appellants added that the PA's approval was also vitiated by the PA's executive chair- man's decision to fly in board member Jacqueline Gili on a private jet to participate in the vote, at the expense of €8,750 paid by the PA. The appellants expressed se- rious doubts on whether "this was a simple exercise to ensure the votes of all those in favour of the project." The appellants expressed doubts whether Gili had "informed herself suffi- ciently the application", after noting that she was absent dur- ing an informal board meeting held on 6 September during which board members were briefed about the application, adding that she had arrived late to the meeting when the final decision was made, missing part of presentation. The decision taken by the board was also vitiated by the "chimerical" consideration of a tunnel which is being pre- sented as the only way to mitigate the project's massive traffic im- pact. Transport Malta itself has declared that "this could be replaced by other meas- ures." "This means that the public lacks any cer- tainty whether the tunnel will take place or not," the appel- lants said, referring to the fact that a letter sent by the govern- ment failed to give any time- frames for the development. "We cannot understand how the board took a decision on such a major project when so far the impacts of the proposed infrastructure to mitigate one of its major impacts have not even been assessed." The project could also be in breach of the Floor Area Ra- tio Policy which regulates tall buildings, and which specifical- ly states that developers should "contribute to the costs" of any measures "to remedy short- comings in local capacity to accommodate demands gener- ated by the development." In an apparent breach of this policy, the board failed to im- pose a condition obliging the developer to contribute finan- cially to the construction of the new tunnel. The FAR policy also precludes the development of apartments which are less than 150sq.m in size from high-rise develop- ments. Yet according to the ap- pellants 35% of the apartments on offer in the DB development are smaller than the stipulated size and 16 have a size of just 110sq.m. The same policy also bans developments which re- sult in excessive shading on residential areas. Labour MP Clayton Bartolo PA Board Member Matthew Pace