Thake calls out environment minister over Portelli selfie in House debate

Nationalist MP David Thake took environment minister Aaron Farrugia to task in a sitting of the House on Wednesday evening, over a selfie he took with construction magnate and Hamrun Spartans president Joseph Portelli.

Thake accused Portelli of having the audacity of carrying out illegal works which are then sanctioned by the Planning Authority, while dubbing Farrugia an unambitious minister for negotiating a 36% decarbonisation rate down to 19% in its EU objectives.

“This is worrying. You destroyed a country and then you try to pinpoint all the wrong things on the PN. You have corrupted the whole lifestyle of the Maltese,” Thake claimed in the House.

The shadow minister also questioned why hunting and birds’ regulations still did not fall under the environment ministry after these were passed under the purview of the Gozo minister, Clint Camilleri, a bird trapper himself. The Wild Birds Regulation Unit​ currently falls under the Ministry of Gozo.

Farrugia retorted that the Nationalist Pary had no valid track record on the environment, citing the percentage of renewable energy of 0.98% back in 2010, while in 2020 is was estimated that it reached 10% “The PN’s legacy is heavy fuel oil and the Marsa power station,” the minister said.

Farrugia mocked the PN as a “party of landfills” in reference to the Għallis and Wied Fulija landfills, the latter now turned into a park.

Farrugia attempted to defend his government from the charge of overdevelopment, saying he was seeking a comprehensive study on development that seeks to eliminate pencil developments and Malta’s so-called uglification, mentioning plans large projects to enact green walls.

On his part, speaking in a budgetary debate on the environment ministry money bill, Nationalist MP Robert Cutajar alleged that Farrugia had employed voters from his constituencies inside national waste agency Wasteserv, either directly or through a contractor.

Cutajar said it was no surprised to hear from a recent EY survey that found that 90% of youths are concerned about the environment, with 70% saying they want to leave the country for good.

He told off Farrugia for blaming this degradation on the 2006 local development plans, accusing Labour of making numerous modifications to the local plans; and questioned a Planning Authority permit for a Xlendi block that will see the demolition of one of the last standing boathouses, to make way for a block of apartments.