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