Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1537913
6 maltatoday | SUNDAY • 27 MARCH 2022 OPINION xx 2 maltatoday EXECUTIVE EDITOR KURT SANSONE ksansone@mediatoday.com.mt Letters to the Editor, MaltaToday, Vjal ir-Rihan, San Gwann SGN 9016 E-mail: dailynews@mediatoday.com.mt Letters must be concise, no pen names accepted, include full name and address maltatoday | SUNDAY • 27 JULY 2025 A dishonest prime minister Editorial WHEN Robert Abela announced in 2023 that government would be reforming the planning ap- peals process to ensure that no works can start while building permits are being appealed, every- one welcomed the move. It was a logical thing to do since we've had cas- es where the Appeals Court would have revoked a permit but the building would have already been erected. The most notable case is that of the swimming pools built in Qala by developer Joseph Portelli that were declared illegal by the court. These pools still stand to this very day and will remain there forever as a result of the planning changes being proposed by the government. Unfortunately, with Abela nothing is as it seems. What you see and what you hear are not what you get—many ministers attest to this but none have the brazenness to call him out. And when the bomb was dropped on a hot Friday afternoon in the middle of the summer lull, Abe- la's dishonesty was exposed. Bill 143 and Bill 144, published on Friday, include several wide-ranging changes to planning regulations that go way be- yond the scope of reforming the appeals system as Abela had suggested two years ago. It transpires that what the prime minister had in mind was a revamped planning system geared to appease developers and big business. Apart from making it harder for a building per- mit to be revoked on appeal, the proposed chang- es provide a looser planning system that will fa- vour developers every step of the way. The sop to environmentalists is a 20-fold increase to €2,000 in the daily fine for breaching an enforcement or- der. Significantly, the proposed changes mean that if the Appeals Court does not finish its job within five months, the developer could start construc- tion work and any subsequent court ruling will have no impact on those works, even if they are deemed illegal. This means that Joseph Portelli's swimming pools would remain standing. But the proposed changes also give the minister new powers to introduce regulations that estab- lish the "procedures, criteria, and conditions un- der which existing illegal developments or struc- tures may be assessed, regulated, or otherwise addressed" by the PA. The prospected changes also grant more discre- tionary power to planning boards to deviate from policies and introduces the notion that the most recent policy changes will override local plans. This means that the 2006 local plans have been effectively neutralised since any new policy after that time will take sway. In one fell swoop, Abela and Planning Minister Clint Camilleri caved in to the demands of devel- opers. They could have spared us all the hassle of having to trawl through the bills to understand the changes and removed the Planning Authori- ty altogether—at least developers will be able to do as they please without giving them a veneer of legitimacy. The Labour Party, its functionaries, Cabinet and not least the prime minister, can now stop quot- ing 2006 as the year of planning shame to justify present ills and blame them on past Nationalist administrations—that moral high horse has long bolted. Abela should not rush this reform through par- liament. It would be a big mistake to bulldoze through the concerns being raised by environ- mentalists and honest citizens. The prime minis- ter should put the country's and our children's in- terests before his own narrow political ambitions and pull up the hand brake. But we will not be surprised if Abela ignores these appeals—he was dishonest enough to prom- ise one thing and deliver something completely different. And with the Nationalist Party caught in the throes of a leadership contest that is unlikely to produce anything different in terms of planning regulation, it is left to civil society organisations, Momentum, ADPD and all people of goodwill to stand up to this obscene reform. Malta deserves better than the current political class that has sold its soul to developers. Quote of the Week "If Roberta Metsola and other EPP politicians had to speak as loudly for each of these journalists as they did for my mother, they would be speaking about them for the rest of their lives." – Matthew Caruana Galizia on the EU's inaction on what is happening in Gaza, including the slow death of journalists operating from inside the Palestinian territory, where hunger is being used by Israel as a weapon of war. MaltaToday 10 years ago Mafioso's son registered at Zammit's firm's address 26 July 2015 COURT documents obtained by Mal laTo- day show that Malta was serving as a mon- ey-laundering base for the remote gaming network ran by the "Ndrangheta, in an alli- ance that also featured the Camorra of Na- ples, a.nd the Sicilian Mafia. According to Reggio Calabria's anti mafia unit,which authoreda 700-page dossier for Operation 'Gambling' and warrants for some 128 persons of in terest, Pendergardens res- ident Mario Gennaro "guaranteed the con- trolled diffusion of various illicit (gambling) sites, the result of a criminal pact with en- trepreneurs (Renato] Grasso and [Anto- nio) Padovani, respectively representing the Camorra and the Si cilian Mafia." [...]