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€0.90 WEDNESDAY EDITION WWW.MALTATODAY.COM.MT Steven Ciantar Interviewed - PAGE 12 WEDNESDAY • 20 NOVEMBER 2013 • ISSUE 341 • PUBLISHED EVERY WEDNESDAY AND SUNDAY Collusion between government and party revealed in RCC special notes SMS 5061 7379: € 2.33 5061 8096: € 4.66 5061 9205: €11.65 Alternatively, you can donate via paypal on our website: www.birdlifemalta.org Help us stop this! Library Place 26c Stamp here maltatoday party but regularly awarded multimillion dollar contracts involving major construction companies. After leaving politics, Joe Saliba served a consultant to various business consortia and was specifically involved in those projects which required assistance when dealing with bureaucracy with MEPA. The habit of passing on cabinet papers to party secretaries seems to have continued even when Paul Borg Olivier replaced Joe Saliba as party secretary. And there is no evidence to show that the dissemination of cabinet papers to non-cabinet members is not being carried out by this administration too. The cabinet represents the highest executive in the country and is enshrined in the Constitution of Malta. HAVE YOU SIGNED THE CALL FOR A BAN ON SPRING HUNTING? Downscaling of Mistra project was made before election JAMES DEBONO NO attempt was made to downscale the controversial 774-apartment Mistra project by the present board of the Malta Environment and Planning Authority. Moreover, a request by NGOs for the revocation of an outline permit issued in 2008 was discussed and turned down by the MEPA board in a behind-closed-doors meeting held on the eve of the public hearing after the authority had asked for legal advice. A spokesperson for the Authority confirmed that the downscaling of the project from 992 to 774 Non-Cabinet member Joe Saliba was privy to sensitive Cabinet information passed on to him by Richard Cachia Caruana apartments dates back to 2012 before the new board chaired by architect Vince Cassar was appointed following the general election. This means that both the outline permit for a 992-apartment project and the subsequent reduction to 774 took place under the previous administration. A spokesperson for MEPA claims that the new board was aware of and satisfied with the fact that the Planning Directorate had undertaken "extensive negotiations" with the applicant to reduce the overall impact of the project. "These negotiations led to a reduction of approximately 20% of the project's total residential ground floor area when compared with what had been granted in the 2008 outline permit." CONTINUES ON PAGE 6 The MaltaToday app: Now bringing you the best Deals in Malta MALTATODAY have just released an updated version of their mobile app for Android and iOS. Version 1.4 includes a brand new 'Deals' widget bringing you great savings of at least 50% from various shops, restaurants and hotels around the island. The widget was created in collaboration with DealToday, the leading deals website in Malta. The update also includes enhancements and fixes to provide a better user experience including an update to the commenting platform allowing users to post comments through their Facebook accounts as well as an update to improve performance on iOS7. The MaltaToday app, developed by Peak Projects, keeps users up to date with the latest news and provides them with a number of interactive widgets including a pharmacy locator and a Gozo ferry schedule. Launched in February of this year, the app has been hugely successful and has been downloaded over 15,000 times, making it by far the most popular news app in Malta. Users can update their current version or download the app from the iOS app store or the Android Play Store. Newspaper post Phone: 5150 2050: €5 5160 2050: €10 5180 2050: €25 marked EXTRA COPY is to be sent to Mr Joe Saliba at Stamperija marked PERSONAL, BY HAND. (You are not to indicate to Mr Saliba that you know what is in the envelope. You may contact to see his whereabouts ONLY in order to obtain dispatch instructions.).' Saliba was the secretary general of the PN and accused several times of being too close to business. There is no confirmation or proof that he used his inside knowledge of cabinet to the party's advantage, but the knowledge of cabinet decisions may have put Saliba in a position of 'advantage' with many influential businessmen and decision makers. He was renowned to have been very close at the time with business magnate Zaren Vassallo and Vassallo was not only close to the Photography: David Tipling/Nature Picture THE revelation that top-secret Cabinet papers were delivered on a regular basis to the secretary general of the Nationalist Party Joe Saliba shows to what extent the 'supremacy' and 'division between state and party' were completely disregarded in previous administrations. There was no comment from MaltaToday the political parties on the matter Vjal ir-Rihan San Gwann, SGN 9016 and most newspapers steered clear from the revelation. Last Sunday, MaltaToday revealed how the former personal assistance of a donation To make Prime Minister Richard Cachia Caruana would arrange for cabinet papers to be delivered to Joe Saliba. In the notes written by Cachia Caruana's secretary, his secretary notes state: 'The third set of docs