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6 maltatoday | WEDNESDAY • 6 NOVEMBER 2019 NEWS ANALYSIS JAMES DEBONO ON Sunday Prime Minister Joseph Muscat criticised the Planning Author- ity for being "insensitive" in approving the transformation of the Qala ruins into a villa with swimming pool. "People were justly enraged over the decision, myself included, because they could not understand how such a decision could be taken. It was technically correct because the permit followed the legislation and the application ticked all the marks on the checklist, but then this means that the 2014 reform itself was illogical," Mus- cat said. Although developer Joseph Portelli has announced that he will be vol- untarily renouncing the permit, peo- ple are still asking why the PA board members approved the permit. Here are five reasons why Muscat is wrong in absolving his government from responsibility by attributing the full blame on the PA, whose members where appointed by him and which is enacting policies embraced by his gov- ernment. 1. PA's political appointees voted against the case officer's advice It is the PA's planning directorate, the technocratic arm of the PA which is composed of case officer and their supervisors, which determines wheth- er planning applications conform to policy or not. In this case the direc- torate was recommending the refusal of this application. In its deliberations the directorate concluded that the ap- plication did not conform to policy. The chairman of the PA's planning commission Elizabeth Ellul disagreed and indicated her intention to approve this permit. Subsequently the case was taken away from her and delegated to the planning board. 2. The government representative voted in favour Labour MP Clayton Bartolo voted in favour of this application, simply ob- serving that photographic images in- dicated that the building in question was a dwelling. Subsequently he ex- plained that he was bound to vote ac- cording to policy, in this case the rural policy development guidelines of 2014, which according to Bartolo should be reformed as soon as possible. But Bartolo completely ignored the case officer's report which recom- mended refusal having based itself on the court's reinterpretation of the RPDG. 3. All political appointees sitting on the board voted in favour The board members who voted in favour of the project included Jacque- line Gili, a director in the Contracts Department, Simone Mousu, a direc- tor for Policy Development in the Jus- tice Ministry, and Deborah Busuttil a member of the Transport Malta board. It is extremely unlikely that political appointees representing government ministries did not consult with their employer before voting. The other "in- dependent board" members appointed by the government, namely Joseph Brincat, Alfred Pule, Duncan Mifsud and Karl Attard also voted in favour. None of them made any attempt to justify their vote during the board meeting. In fact they rarely participate in any discussion. As often happens, the only people who contributed to the discussion were PA board chairman Vince Cas- sar and ERA chairman Victor Axiak. Deputy chairman Elizabeth Ellul also remained silent but had made her opinions clear on previous sittings of the planning commission she chairs. 4. The RPDG were reinterpreted by the law courts The 2014 rural policy development guidelines were reinterpreted by the law courts in a way which excludes re- development of ruins which lost their roofs by 1978. So the board had the perfect justifi- cation to turn down the permit. The permit was assessed according to article 6.2A of the controversial ru- ral policy, which allows the redevelop- ment of countryside ruins into dwell- ings if proof of previous residence is presented. In this case the proof consisted in the death certificate of a certain Grazia Mifsud dating back to 1921. But although similar proof was ac- cepted in similar cases, in this case the planning directorate made direct reference to a court judgement which reinterpreted the policy in a way that buildings can only be transformed into dwellings if still habitable in 1978. In this case the building already ap- peared to be roofless in aerial photos dating 40 years back. Planning Board chairman Vince Cassar forcefully ar- gued that the permit had to be assessed according to the court's decision. Law- yer Ian Stafrace (a former MEPA chief executive officer) defended the devel- oper's application and accused the PA of lack of consistency, citing cases ap- proved in breach of the court decree. But he did not question the validity of the court sentence. 5. The policy itself was approved by politicians and its negative impact has been known for years The rural policy was devised in 2014 by the newly elected Labour govern- ment. The negative impacts of this policy have been documented in sev- eral reports by MaltaToday since 2015. These showed a pattern through which new countryside dwellings are approved instead of piles of rubble or roofless structures on the basis of references in old electoral registers, sometimes issued prior to WWII and in one case before WWI. One permit issued on an old struc- ture in Binġemma Road in Mġarr was issued on the basis of a declaration by a pensioner living in Australia who "distantly remembered" his uncle in- habiting the buildings between 1954 and 1960. Muscat now gives the impression that the PA was deliberately slowing down the government from reform- ing the policy, noting that Infrastruc- ture Minister had told him that he had already asked for a changeover a year ago. The policy reform, which will have to include three, separate, six-week long public consultations, was only launched last week. It is expected to take another year. The reform of the controversial pol- icy has been in the offing since 2017 following findings of a MaltaToday Why Muscat is wrong in shifting blame Five reasons why Muscat is wrong in absolving his government from responsibility by attributing the full blame on the PA