When, in September last year, Planning Authority executive chairman, Johann Buttigieg, hired a private jet to fly to Malta a board member holidaying in Sicily to be able to vote on the db Group’s mega-development project in St George’s Bay, many could hardly believe it. His decision was so patently wrong – from all angles – that an official censure was a foregone conclusion.
The censure did not take long to come either, though it does not seem to be strong enough. In an assessment of the decision, made following a complaint by former Alternattiva Demokratika chairman Arnold Cassola, the Ombudsman said that Mr Buttigieg’s intervention “can be interpreted as if there were an unwarranted influence on the said member of the board”.
Giving Mr Buttigieg the benefit of the doubt, he may not have intended to exert any influence but this was how it was generally interpreted. The Ombudsman was asked to see whether the decision to fly a board member from abroad was a case of maladministration and whether it was discriminatory towards applications and objectors in other cases when no such measures were taken.
Environment Commissioner Alan Saliba could not be clearer when he said that...
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