Planning Authority keeps chairman’s new salary under wraps

The Planning Authority has delayed giving an answer to a question about the executive chairman’s new salary, instead forwarding this newspaper to make a Freedom of Information request – a lengthier approach to obtaining this information.

Instead of giving an immediate answer to this newspaper’s question on the new salary of Johann Buttigieg, and the salaries paid to the chairman and members of the Environment and Planning Commission, the PA’s spokesperson suggested that MaltaToday should make “a request for this information under and through the procedures established by the Freedom of Information Act”.

MaltaToday has presented the request through the Freedom of Information Act.

A decision on such requests has to be provided within 20 working days from submission of the request, which means that the answer may be given after the general election. A refusal can be contested through a complaint, and a second refusal then forwarded to the Information and Data Protection Commissioner to review.

The PA immediately answered similar requests made in the past regarding salaries paid to former PA executive officer Ian Stafrace and to Johann Buttigieg himself.

In January, a PA spokesperson confirmed that the salary and allowances paid to the executive chairman of the Planning Authority “are still under discussion”.

The former CEO of the Planning Authority was appointed executive chairman, with added responsibilities which include chairing the PA’s executive council, following the approval of the new planning law.

The PA spokesperson confirmed that in the interim, the executive chairman is being paid the same salary (and allowances) previously enjoyed by the Chief Executive Officer of the Malta Environment and Planning Authority.

As CEO, Johann Buttigieg was receiving an annual salary of €60,000, €10,000 less than his predecessor Ian Stafrace, made in his final year in office.

When he was appointed in 2011, Stafrace received a basic salary of €65,000 – which was set to increase to €70,000 in the second and third years of his appointment. 

Buttigieg, who is in charge of the day-to-day running of the PA, is earning three times as much as present PA chairman Vince Cassar, who was appointed on a part-time basis with a salary of €18,000. In 2013, his predecessor, Austin Walker, who was initially appointed as executive chairman in 2008, received an annual salary of €93,000. 

The executive chairperson may only be dismissed by a resolution of the House of Representatives at any time “for a just cause”. The law also specified that failure to achieve “the targets and objectives set for him by the Minister”, amount to a just cause for dismissal.