The guillotine has finally fallen on MEPA’s auditor

What disgraceful behaviour. Joe Falzon, the man who has been auditing Malta Environment and Planning Authority (MEPA) so diligently, refusing to allow that authority to ride roughshod over us for eight years, has been summarily dismissed. To add insult to injury, he is now being used as a political football.

Of course the blade has been hanging over his head since 2007 and his contract has only been renewed on a three monthly basis since 2010. But he still carried on working regardless and he certainly deserved better treatment than a sudden guillotine.

He was called to a meeting with the Ombudsman on Wednesday and the first thing he was told was, “I don’t know if they told you but the audit office will stop functioning next week.” The government, through the Environment Ministry, quickly reacted to that news item by issuing a statement, placing the onus of responsibility, keeping Mr Falzon informed on the situation, on the Ombudsman, “Government has received no notification from the Office of the Ombudsman on the appointment of a Commissioner for the Environment. Consequently, it was not in a position to advise Mr Falzon on an appointment, which is to be effected not by government but by the Office of the Ombudsman.

“The Ombudsman was informed some time back that the discussions between the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition were not conclusive and that the decision according to law now fell within his responsibility.”

Oh dear, we are back to passing the buck. It also looks like the Ombudsman is being used as a screen to detract any criticism away from the government. But that is nothing new.
People complain to the Ombudsman, the investigation takes time and when a report finally emerges it only offers recommendations and no concrete action, since it has no such authority. So the heat was off the government and nothing is really done.

“Changes in the Ombudsman Act which envisaged the removal of the Office of the Auditor within Mepa and the appointment of a Commissioner for the Environment within the Office of the Ombudsman were made with the unanimous consent of Parliament,” the Environment Ministry said.

So obviously, both parties would prefer to have an Environment Commissioner within the Office of the Ombudsman (i.e. toothless) than an auditor, who did not mince his words in his, sometimes scathing, reports on MEPA’s workings.

“These changes were designed to strengthen the scrutiny of work done by the Malta Environment and Planning Authority given that the Office of the Ombudsman and its commissioners were not answerable to government or Mepa, but to Parliament, ” said the Ministry’s statement. What a load of baloney.

Joe Falzon was doing an excellent job at scrutinising MEPA’s workings. On the other hand, we have seen case after case getting nowhere after being investigated by the Ombudsman, because it has no teeth. Oh yes, the complainant is given justification many a time, but all s/he gets is grand paroli.

The Office of the Ombudsman might not be answerable to government or MEPA, but it weighs its words very carefully in its reports to avoid offending anyone. The changes will weaken not strengthen scrutiny. You just gotta break some eggs if you want a positive result when conducting investigations.

Since, according to the Environment Ministry statement there was “unanimous consent” in Parliament about the changes to the Ombudsman Act, “which envisaged the removal of the Office of the Auditor within MEPA and the appointment of a Commissioner for the Environment within the Office of the Ombudsman”, why is the Labour Party (PL) “insisting it should be consulted about changes within the Office of the Ombudsman to ensure there was the necessary scrutiny on the Malta Environment and Planning Authority.”
Was there unanimous consent in Parliament on the issue or not?

The PL is complaining, “Action now seemed to be taken quickly, so much so that Mr Falzon was not notified that his post was being removed.” The statement said that “the government kept everything under wraps for the past year and a half” and now “the government’s manoeuvres behind the people’s back were out in the open”.

The move to get rid of Mr Falzon and his audit office started rolling five years ago, ironically, when he was asked to investigate a case by the Ombudsman. The issue was covered in my column in The (Malta) Sunday Times (end of April 2007) entitled “Is public consultation a sham backed by the law?”

The residents of Mellieha Santa Maria Estate had written to the Office of the Ombudsman for redress and requested the Ombudsman to investigate the issue of building permits by MEPA to developers of adjoining sites, which involved the changing of development zoning to allow the construction of multi-storey underground garages and overlying high rise buildings.

The residents complained that no public consultation at all took place about the zoning changes; that the public was not advised by MEPA of these major changes and that they were not given the opportunity to submit their representations. They also claimed that other irregularities of a technical nature took place in the processing of the application that in their view severely prejudiced their rights.

Mr Falzon’s investigation led him to conclude that “MEPA failed to consult, with the public, on the substantial amendments and additions that were carried out to the draft Local Plan after the original drafts were issued for public consultation”. Adding, “MEPA justified its actions by stating that it acted on legal advice.”

The auditor said that in his view “MEPA is obliged to consult the public on the preparation of a Local Plan (vide Section 27 of the Development Planning Act) on a substantially wider scale than that applied by MEPA.”

It was the Ombudsman who proposed that the Audit Office should fall under his wing administratively, claiming the move “should give more autonomy to the audit office,” in July of 2007. This had followed a stalemate between MEPA and its auditor over the former's resistance to the latter's investigator Carmel Cacopardo being reinstated, which Mr Falzon claimed was “part of a ploy to render his office innocuous”.

Nearly a year later, after he criticised MEPA over the Mistra outline permit, a decision made by Mr Falzon in 1994, when he chaired a DCC board, surfaced to undermine him. Unlike the MEPA responses to criticism, there was no mystifying verbiage and patronising arrogance, no faffing about or excuses. His reasons were as clear-cut as his reports.

“I think, honestly, even if I was on a DCC board and had to take a similar decision now, I would take the same decision, though now the legal situation has changed as a result of the Habitats Directive and there are more legal constraints,” he had told The (Malta) Times’ Mark Micallef.

“It does not bode well, in an effort to divert the heat away from the promised reforms at our Environment and Planning Authority the tide has turned to discrediting the auditor who has repeatedly brought to our and the authorities’ attention the wrongs at MEPA. It seems to me that the powerful development lobby has got at someone and there is a move to get Joe Falzon chopped, hung and quartered, since attempts to having his wings clipped did not work”, I wrote in my  Malta Today column (April 2008) “Red herrings and Greeks bearing gifts.”

Article published in the Independent on Sunday on 29 July 2012 

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Who is aiming to be top dog at the PN?

Browsing the Internet, I saw that despite the awful heat, people are still very interested in the current spate of political shenanigans. On 24 June, I commented that I shall have to reach out for a bucket if I see yet another photo of Franco Debono. Now it is Jeffrey Pullicino Orlando’s turn to turn my stomach over. Although it must be said, JPO is better looking. But as they say, looks are not everything. JPO might do well in that department, but when it comes to credibility he loses out to Franco. Despite his blundering, the latter has not yet quite reached JPO’s level of amateur dramatics. We have not seen any crocodile tears from Franco, yet. His calls for reforms were genuine and needed. He just handled the political manoeuvring rather badly, demonstrating incredible naivety coupled with an inflated ego. He must be panicking now, since, I believe, his thinking was that people disenchanted with the current administration, but who do not favour Labour, would vote for him as the PN saviour and he would have reached his objective. The PN executive has scuppered that. The latter had a tough decision to make, particularly with regard to two of the barred from standing under the PN banner at the next election, since they can cause havoc in this legislature. JPO is creating confusion over Richard Cachia Caruana and will no doubt not stop there (although he had announced he would not be standing at the next election, the executive obviously did not believe him. Besides, he has been sleeping with the enemy − his partner is a Labour activist) and FD is claiming he did not know what he would do in Parliament, although it would be difficult to support the government, a step further. Meanwhile, as much as JPO lost all credibility with me since the Mistra saga and I am sceptical about his current allegations, it is disgraceful and unacceptable that his family is being threatened. “We have four children in our household and this is not an easy time for us. Nothing can justify what we are being put through,” he said. He is right in saying that if people wanted him expelled from the party for exercising his democratic right in Parliament; they should do so without resorting to vile, bullying tactics. It is ironic that it is the Labour Party that is providing the family of a Nationalist MP with round-the-clock private security and that one of the claims he is making against RCC is that pressure was applied on a new Labour administration to continue providing him with police protection after he was nearly killed in a murder attempt. It is the allegations that RCC “tried to exert, via a high-ranking member of the 1996-1998 Labour administration, pressure on Hon. Mizzi, then Minister of the Interior, to replace the head of the Security Services for personal reasons”. And that “Mr Mizzi has implicated Mr Cachia Caruana in alleged interference with the course of justice in relation to a cocaine party organised by individuals who were close to Mr Cachia Caruana,” that need to be substantiated. Now for the gist of my heading, seeing as Franco Debono’s hopes have been dashed. The list of the new candidates who will be seeking election under the PN banner held few surprises. So far only three women’s names have appeared − Dolores Christina, Therese Comodini Cachia and Caroline Galea. I am sure that Giovanna will be back, but until the PN decide to apply gender quotas, women will still be under represented in that camp at least. As for the men, the rising PN stars are Chris Said, Beppe Fenech Adami and David Agius. Carm Mifsud Bonnici will be back, but I doubt that Alexiei Dingli will get there. As Valletta mayor he has failed the residents, especially the elderly, badly putting commercial and his party ambitions first. As for Manuel Delia, if his Arriva grand fiasco does not hold him back, the electorate truly deserve any bad decisions a government will dish out. It will be interesting to see if old stalwarts Francis Zammit Dimech and Censu Galea get back in and if cardiac surgeon Prof. Albert Fenech makes any leeway in politics. Now for a different kind of current climate and real dogs. The weather is kind of hot and beaches and even more the sea are both places we humans need in a heat wave. We are lucky to have clean seas and so far, at least where I swim, no jellyfish. But recently people started arriving with their dogs and although I don’t mind dogs, I don’t like swimming with them. I also don’t like being sprayed by a dog shaking itself dry or having my clothes sprayed, and that could also be a smelly kind of water. Now, the least dog owners can do is ensure that their dog is on a lead and that they station themselves at a reasonable distance from other people’s towels and clothes. But of course some are completely oblivious that their beloved pets are not accepted as a family member by everyone on the beach. It is not a relaxing swim when one has to keep an eye on a roaming dog on the beach to see that it does not decide to pee on your towel. I remember reading about a new law on dogs and beaches and I also recall the outcry by many dog owners, but by no means all. There was also a warning about the health risks posed by dog faeces by the Minister of Health no less, which landed him with some prize comments, some appropriate, especially those referring to pigeons and horse dung in Valletta (the road to Marsamxetto, Triq L-Assedju L-Kbir, should be renamed “Horse Shit Street”). However, whatever his failings, he was right about dogs on beaches so he should take action and ensure the law is being enforced. Published in the Malta Independent on Sunday July 15, 2012

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Where tinkling away at toy pianos can lead

At six years of age, Tricia Dawn Williams was, as she puts it, “tinkling away on four toy pianos − three blue and one black”. Today, at 38, she is one of Malta’s most accomplished pianists, specialising in modern/contemporary music.

I first heard Dawn (she told me she gave up on Tricia since too many people were mispronouncing it) play at an Equinox Trio concert at the American Embassy a few years ago and have been following her career ever since. Equinox held a concert at St James Cavalier sponsored by the Australian High Commission just a few months ago.

She told me that her constant “tinkling” at home got the message across and her dad found her a piano teacher. From the age of seven right up to Grade Eight, she always came first in her piano exams under the tutelage of Rita Micallef. She also got a bronze medal at 12 and a silver at 14 (competitors were from four different countries) from Trinity College of Music in London. She took her ‘O’ levels while working for her eight grade exam and her ‘A’ levels while studying for her piano diploma, Dawn tells me proudly.

“I suppose I was a bit of a nerd, at least that’s what my friends used to say I was, ” she adds. “As soon as I got home from school I would head straight to the piano and start practising, I never stopped to eat, or for anything else, until my mum would start shouting at me to get on with my homework, which I usually got done by 11pm. There were no weekend outings, except to play the organ in church,” she said.

The organ playing came about when the parish priest visited their home to bless it. “Whenever people came home, my father would ask me to play the piano for them. I remember hating it and trying to avoid it, or just being stubborn and refusing to do it. I just hated someone trying to show me off.”

However, she did play something for the priest and he asked her whether she would like to start playing the organ at the 6pm Mass during the week. “I honestly don’t remember agreeing to this, but the next day my father came home with a brand new copy of the hymn book Innijiet with all the music. It looked very easy to play and boring, I’m afraid to say.

“When the day came I arrived three quarters of an hour earlier, because I had to be shown the ropes. I had never seen an organ in my life. So many buttons, and the pedals. My first experience was that whatever music was put in front of me I had to forget the time signature, all I had to do was play the notes and let everyone sing.

“At first this was very frustrating, but then I decided to look at it from a different angle and thought it would be a good exercise for me to play in a different way. I also started improvising because I thought that if they can do what they want then so can I. Strangely enough, improvising always came naturally to me on the organ, but I shy away when I’m asked to do it on the piano, something that has always baffled me!”

Dawn’s organ playing got noticed and people started commenting positively. “It was then, at age 13, that I started going for organ lessons with Patri Bert Borg, who sadly passed away this year, and learnt how to play the organ properly, using the pedals too. I had an organ lesson once a week and piano lessons twice a week,” she said.

“So I suppose boyfriends were out of the question,” I remarked. “I was also 13 when I met my first boyfriend,” she told me. When I asked how on earth she had found the time, she said had met him in church of course. “I used to practise on the pipe organ in church every Saturday morning. In no time I was playing at all the major ceremonies at my parish church in Senglea. But after I did my Grade 8 exam, I had to take a decision.

Practising once or twice a week wasn’t enough and Patri Bert suggested I buy my own organ. But I was more interested in playing the piano, so my organ studies fell by the wayside,” she said. Dawn was 16 when she had her first serious relationship, which ended up in marriage at 19 followed by the birth of her first daughter, Sehrazat, now 19, and her second daughter Seda, now 18, a year later.

“That drastic change in my lifestyle put a stop to my piano playing. Looking after two small girls left me no time, let alone energy, for anything else. In retrospect I should have concentrated on my music and not got married so early. Except that of course I adore my girls. I was separated at 22 and I felt that I had crammed a lifetime in those three years, ” she said.

Having neglected the piano for four to five years, Dawn’s first break came in her mid twenties through a chance meeting with violinist James Grech. “I was in partnership with my ex husband in a chain of Turkish food outlets at the time, and one evening, James, wearing his tails, came in to one of them after a concert.

“We got chatting. He was telling me about his career and I told him, ‘I used to play the piano’. He got very interested and surprised me by saying, ‘why don’t we play a concert together’. I was really taken aback, I had almost forgotten I used to play the piano until we started chatting, so was rather nervous about such an undertaking,” she told me.

However, James persuaded her to start practising with him “just for fun”. That went so well that they were booked for their first recital of classical and romantic music for piano and violin at the Manoel’s Sala Isouard, six months later.

“On the morning of the concert I got so scared that I phoned James at 6am and told him I wanted to cry off. He was rightly furious and there was no way he would agree to cancel. So I had to perform. I was very tense and I certainly did not enjoy it, but I was back to some serious piano playing.”

Dawn played regularly with James for a couple of years. In 1999 she met the composer Rueben Zahra, who had just returned to Malta after four years in Rome. “Until I met him, my music knowledge was restricted to classical and romantic composers like Chopin and Rachmaninoff. He gave me a Bartok piano concerto CD as a birthday present to introduce me to modern music. I immediately fell in love with Bartok and Rueben suggested that I start taking lessons in modern music.

“That was when I started studying Bartok with Pawlu Grech, who introduced me to other modern composers like Ligeti, Cage, Saygun and Adams.”
Later that year Dawn gave her first performance of contemporary music with the original Etnika, which had been set up by Ruben Zahra and Andrew Alamango, featuring works by Rueben. “Since then I have only played modern and contemporary music,” she told me.

In the early 2000s, Dawn played a lot with Etnika in several concerts around Malta. After a couple of years, Etnika started playing different music. Eventually, the initial instrumental formation changed to a more flexible one, which did not include a piano. However, she continued doing duo recitals with different people, “but nothing major,” she said.

“In 2007, Ruben wanted to record Mouse in the Machine for clarinet and piano. Lino Pirotta was to play the clarinet. Lino was also very interested in modern and contemporary music so we clicked immediately and after recording Ruben’s piece we started to plan a recital of our own. We played at St James Cavalier, private events and during Notte Bianca. That was when we decided on the name – Equinox.

In 2009, Karl Fiorini asked the duo to play his music at a recital, but it needed a violinist. They asked Tatiana Kirkop whether she was interested in joining them. She was and Equinox grew from a duo to a trio.

That year, the group played in Paris at Les Invalides, at a recital at the President’s Palace and took part in Evenings on Campus. Equinox has also often taken part in recitals organised by embassies and has been invited to festivals by composers, who wanted them to play their work.

In 2011, the Equinox Trio were invited to play at the Contemporary Sounds Festival organised by the Malta Association for Contemporary Music; Evenings on Campus; the International Festival of the Arts, and Karl Fiorini’s Spring Festival. Besides her work with the Equinox trio, Dawn is also part of Rueben Zahra’s ‘Crossbreed’, an open contemporary ensemble.

Its name derives from the fact that the instruments change according to the project in hand. Crossbreed, with Dawn on piano, Kevin Abela on trumpet and Daniel Cauchi on percussion, was in Torino last November to open a festival of contemporary music Musiche in Mostra, with Rueben Zahra’s Diversity, which they were all very excited about. Maltese audiences, me included, got the opportunity to hear this dynamic and eclectic piece, including both drama and fun, at Sala Isouard, during Karl Fiorini’s Spring Festival this year.

Then of course Dawn has ongoing projects with her solo work, one of which involves piano and storytelling of folktales, myths and legends. She is working with a Maltese narrator, Joseph Galea, and last November she was invited by the Associazione Culturale Etnea to perform in Sicily with Italian actress Biancamaria Stanzani Ghedini. She has performed this work locally several times as part of Notte Bianca, Evenings on Campus and at St James Cavalier for school projects.

“One of my favourites is Henry Cowell’s Three Irish Legends, which can be performed with a narrator, or just on the piano. Besides the fact that the pieces of contemporary music that I choose are dynamic and powerful, what I find so exciting is discovering new composers, discussing their music with them and bringing it all alive. On top of all that, the cherry on the cake is when one of those composers asks me whether I would like him or her to write a piece for me. This has happened with two composers, one Scot and the other American.”

Dawn’s hectic lifestyle has not really changed that much since her girls have grown up, she just plays more music and looks after two pet degus − Walter and Peter. But she does stick to a healthy regime. She is up at six and makes up a breakfast of fresh vegetable juices. She loves gadgets and waxed lyrical about her wonderful juicer, which she bought abroad. Then off to work at 7.30 until 5 pm. (She has a full time job with General Soft Drinks as PA to the general manager).

“Music is my life, but I have to put food on the table. Having said that, I have a wonderful boss and am lucky to have a great work environment,” she tells me. After work she practices on the piano from six to nine with a dinner break and is in bed by 10. Thursdays are the exception because she goes to a Pilates class. The weekends are for household chores and shopping and of course five hours of piano practice. I almost didn’t dare ask about socialising. “Well, I do go to concerts, especially when friends are performing,” she said.

So what are Dawn’s plans for the future? “On Tuesday I shall be playing with Nafra, a traditional folk ensemble with a contemporary edge (also a Ruben Zahra enterprise) at the Institute of Art & Design Annual Exhibition and on 4 August in Sicily, also with Nafra.
In 2013, a recital is planned with Macedonian musician Gyorgyi Ciencievski on double bass, featuring new work composed specifically for Dawn and Gyorgyi by Maltese, Chinese, Australian, American and Macedonian composers.

“I shall also be working with a French composer, Denis Levaillant, who has just finished writing 20 piano études. He is selecting pianists from all over the globe and organising a worldwide premier tour. I was lucky that he came across some of my live performances on YouTube and asked me whether I would be interested in being one of them, which of course I was delighted to accept.”

You can watch Dawn playing on this link – www.youtube.com/watch?v=OzBFzaT0me8

Article published in the Independent on Sunday on 01 July 2012 

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