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Matthew Vella
Architect Catherine Galea will be swapping hats when three applications proposing the construction of dwellings outside the development zone will be put in front of the Development Control Commission, the commission she heads in the Malta Environment and Planning Authority.
Galea is the architect acting for developers seeking to erect dwelling apartments outside the development zone – areas not intended for development – in Fgura, Fontana Gozo, and Mellieha. Formal objections have already been lodged with MEPA from environment groups concerned with the proposed applications.
In reality, it is a normal occurrence at MEPA. Architects sitting on one of the MEPA commissions for an annual Lm3,000 honoraria also have to face the very commissions they sit on when their private interests come up for decision.
“There is nothing one can do to prevent a member having an interest in a particular development application, whatever the profession of the member,” MEPA spokesperson Sylvana Debono says, acknowledging a commonplace reality.
“The specific interest of members of the commissions on particular development applications is not always known beforehand but is also declared. The members’ integrity is beyond doubt.”
The MEPA board is in fact already aware of Galea’s applications, even though the irony is telling of the schizoid workings at the authority: the DCC is in fact responsible for the decisions on applications falling mainly in white areas and outside the development zone.
The conflict of interest is also confirmed by MEPA itself. “When an application is placed by a member on his or her own behalf or on behalf of clients, it is deemed by MEPA to constitute a clear conflict of interest,” Debono says. “In these situations the conflict of interest is immediately apparent from the information supplied with the application and is always declared.”
All members on any of MEPA’s decision-making bodies are guided by the Code of Ethics issued by the Office of the Prime Minister. The code specifies what a member must do when a conflict of interest is declared. “This procedure is diligently followed and proceedings minuted in file. MEPA expects the highest standards of ethics from members sitting on these Boards and Commissions be they architects or otherwise,” Debono says.
In complying with the code, Catherine Galea will in fact sit out the decision on these three applications, although the situation can be risible – right after handling other applications and dispensing the commission’s judgement, she will stand up and take the opposing side to push through her application.
“That is how the system is,” Catherine Galea herself told MaltaToday. “Whoever appoints members to the MEPA boards and commissions is aware of this situation. There is no law prohibiting the members from refraining from their private activities.”
Asked whether she felt uncomfortable in the role of DCC head when these conflicts of interest arose, Galea acknowledged the reality of the situation. “I don’t really have to feel uncomfortable any more than other members on the boards and commissions have to. Many of them are architects with their own private activities, and who also declare their conflicts of interest.”
This is in fact the way conflicts of interest are solved at MEPA. Even if suspicion persists, maybe owing to influence on other DCC colleagues and members, decisions can always be challenged at the MEPA – an audit officer at MEPA has the power to investigate and audit decisions on applications.
“What can I answer to that?” Galea says. “In theory, influence on the decision-making process can come from all sides, even from outside. There is always the audit officer to analyse the decisions taken.”
matthew@newsworksltd.com
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