Villa Rosa: Why political leaders should disclose their meetings with developers

On Sunday, MaltaToday published a story questioning whether the Prime Minister and the Opposition Leader have discussed local plan changes in meetings held with Anton Camilleri, the owner of the Villa Rosa site.

Opposition leader Bernard Grech skirted around the questions while the PM’s spokesperson confirmed meetings with the developer involving government officials, but failed to answer whether Abela himself was present.

It is pertinent to point out that we did not ask whether they were given a briefing/presentation on the project itself, but whether they discussed modifications to the local plan to accommodate the Villa Rosa project, with the site owner in question.

We did this not because we believe there is anything wrong with the Prime Minister or the Opposition meeting leading business figures. It stands to reason that any Prime Minister or Opposition Leader would engage with major economic players in the same way they should maintain a dialogue with NGOs and civil society.

In fact, it is hard to fathom the embarrassment that underpinned the replies by both the government and the opposition, who refused to confirm whether the PM or the Opposition Leader were present at these meetings which they did not deny.

The issue here is that we are talking about meetings during which a public policy decision (changes to the local plan) could have been the main item on the agenda.

Moreover, we raised this issue because, in this case, the government has embarked on policy changes that directly impact development on the site owned by Anton Camilleri, and therefore the public should have a full trail of the discussions leading to this outcome.

It is worth noting that, on the same day, The Times of Malta revealed that the plan to change St George's Bay’s Villa Rosa local plan, published by the Planning Authority on Tuesday, was lifted almost word-for-word from a list of suggestions drafted by the project’s developers and later presented to Cabinet.

Therefore, when last week we decided to ask the PM and the Opposition Leader whether they had discussed the local plan changes with Camilleri, we did so in the interests of full disclosure and transparency.

This is because Malta still lacks a transparency register. And for us, this is a textbook case of the kind of meetings that should be included in such a register, as proposed by the Standards Commissioner four years ago.

It is worth recalling that in September when faced with questions about whether the PM intends to undertake this important reform, a spokesperson replied that the government intends to present a broad package of reforms aimed at strengthening governance and integrity later this year. We eagerly await for the new rules to come in place. 

If such a register were already in place, any meeting between government officials and the developer would have been logged, registered, and crucially minuted.

But in the meantime, we will continue demanding transparency on meetings held before the new rules come in place. 

Moreover, if such a reform is enacted, meetings between government members and persons who have an interest in obtaining permits, authorisations, concessions, or other benefits from the state would always be held in an official setting in the presence of officials.

The presence of civil servants in such meeting would ensure that these meetings are held in an institutional framework beyond the suspicion of political wielding and dealing.

As suggested by the Standards Commissioner these meetings would need to be recorded in the transparency register, with “minutes of such meetings... kept for record and audit purposes.”

This is also crucial because it would be useless to record such meetings in the absence of an official record on what has been said and, on the outcome, reached.  

While there could be occasional cases where this information can be time barred or redacted due to the sensitivity of the discussions, the information should still be on record and accessible to the scrutiny of the Standards Commissioner and the Auditor General.

And if the transparency register is also extended to all sitting MPs (as it should), it would also oblige Bernard Grech to register these meetings. This is because the public also deserves to know about any meetings which potentially commits a potential government in waiting for any policy changes.

Sure, recording such meetings is no guarantee that the decisions made will be in the public interest. But it will ensure that any meeting held with a private lobbyist is not conducted behind the public’s back. 

Coupled with a radical reform of party (and candidate) financing rules, this could address the lurking suspicion that decisions are conditioned by the power of big money.