ERA absent in 20% of Planning Board meetings in 2023

The representative of the Environment and Resources Authority was absent in nine out of 45 meetings held by the Planning Board in 2023. 

One of the most notable absences was that during a board meeting held on 7 December, 2023 during which the board approved the construction of an old people’s home in Naxxar outside development zones instead of an old farm building, to which ERA had previously objected to.  

Only Naxxar mayor Anne-Marie Muscat Fenech Adami voted against, in a meeting attended by only seven board members. 

NGO representative Romano Cassar was also indisposed. Like ERA, NGOs cannot send a substitute representative. 

A spokesperson for the ERA confirmed that its representative Dr Aimee Brincat attended 36 meetings out of the 45 Planning Board meetings held during 2023. “For the remaining meetings, the representative was excused due to circumstances beyond their control, such as work travel,” the spokesperson said. 

The composition and appointment of Planning Board members is regulated by the Development Planning Act and does not foresee any substitute for indisposed Board members. The ERA spokesperson refrained from commenting when asked whether the law should be changed.  

The government had promised to change the law to enable ERA to send a substitute, after a controversial vote in August 2016 in which a narrow seven votes in favour and six against approved a permit for the Townsquare high-rise in Sliema. On that occasion ERA representative Victor Axiak was sick. 

But his missing vote was critical since – had he voted against – it could have swayed the result, especially after it emerged that he had described the Townsquare EIA as a sham in a memo he had sent to another PA board member before the meeting. “Had I known that my vote would have made such a big difference, I would have crawled to the place, despite my cardiologist’s advice,” Axiak later said in interview. 

In August 2016, then environment minister Jose Herrera cited legal advice from the Attorney General that a board member could not be substituted when indisposed. Herrera declared then that “the necessary legal amendments were currently being prepared for this to become possible.” 

But nearly seven years after the controversial Townsquare vote, the law has not been changed to enable ERA to send a substitute whenever its representative is indisposed. 

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