Front Ħarsien ODZ criticises ‘suspicous’ Paceville master plan process

Front Ħarsien ODZ has said it was “appalled” to hear during the parliamentary committee meeting on Wednesday of the way in which Mott MacDonald was awarded the Paceville master plan contract.

During the four-hour-long hearing, Mott MacDonald official Damien Price said that the PA had e-mailed the company in March, along with several other firms, to ask whether they would be interested in working on an integrated transport strategy for the Paceville district.

Mott MacDonald had had a meeting with the Planning Authority in April, around the same time that their work on the Mercury House project had ended, and submitted a proposal at the end of the month. However, the terms of reference changed midway through the adjudication process, and Mott MacDonald was selected as consultant for the €300,000 master plan in early May.

“If, after a contract is awarded, the terms of reference change in such a drastic way, then the tender must be reissued and the competition must start again with these new terms. Otherwise, it amounts to a direct order from the PA to Mott MacDonald, which raises strong suspicion,” Front said in a media statement.

Front also decried the potential conflict of interest that arose due Mott MacDonald’ involvement with the Mercury House Project.

Mott McDonald had also drafted engineering reports for the Mercury House project, the brainchild of businessman Joseph Portelli, who plans to build two skyscrapers on the 80,000-square-metre-site. However, Price told MPs at the environment and planning committee that they had verbally informed Buttigieg of their work for Portelli, but were given the go-ahead that it did not constitute a conflict of interest.

The Planning Authority’s executive chairman Johann Buttigieg has vehemently denied that the consultants indeed had a conflict of interest. Similarly, Price also denied the claims made by Opposition MPs George Pullicino, Marthese Portelli and Ryan Callus, arguing that the company’s work on Mercury House had “ceased” before it had submitted their proposal for the master plan last April. He added that it was fellow consultancy firm Broadway Maylan that actually worked on the developmental aspect of the Paceville master plan, with Mott MacDonald’s work limited to designing a transport strategy.

“During the meeting, it emerged that this master plan merely accommodates proposals that had already been made by individual businesses interests, and that at no point were residents or civil society consulted,” Front lamented.

Front insisted that to expropriate property for private interests is illegal and in contravention of human rights.

It reiterated its call for a national master plan to be drawn up, before local plans are amended. 

Front said that it is convinced that had the government consulted civil society before rushing with its plans, "far less time and money would have been wasted on this highly unjust proposal."