'Put simply, I'm an expensive car Vanessa'... MEPA chairman Austin Walker

Asked by www.di-ve.com editor Vanessa Macdonald during a one-hour interview this morning whether he “deserved €93,000 a year”, Walker did not mince his words. “It all depends,” Walker said.  “If you decide to buy an expensive car, than you have to pay for it,” he insisted.

This was the short reply given to Macdonald by Walker, reportedly the third highest-paid public servant in Malta, who handles one of the most contentious of government regulators: the environment and planning authority.

Asked about the government's practice of awarding contract such as the power station extension and the Xaghra outfall contracts before even the planning permits were issued, Walker agreed that this was putting MEPA in an awkward situation. “It is an anomaly that Enemalta issues a tender and then the preferred developer who applies to MEPA,” he lamented. “I think the country needs a better way in which national projects are handled,” he insisted.

Those who were against the projects would consider MEPA as a rubber stamp, while all those supporting government would expect MEPA to approve the projects. “These projects should be approved following a wide dissuasion process,” Walker insisted. “These projects put MEPA in an awkward situation,” he added.

Walker explained how in the case of the Freeportproject, “in view of the objections of the residents”, MEPA had approved a planning gain on the dredging part. He revealed that following the decision, the Government had issued a legal notice legislating that no public gain should be charged on projects of national importance.

Walker got a bit edgy when asked about his stormy relationship with MEPA auditor Joe Falzon and his complaints about lack of resources. “It is a good relationship, although everybody in MEPA complains about lack of resources,” Walke rtold Macdonald.

Walker claimed that out of 150 complaints that the MEPA auditor’s office received during the last year, there were 75 on which he could not proceed. If there was a MEPA board and a decision had been taken, the appeals board was obliged to give a planning reason to overturn that decision. “In the past two years, there was only one overturned decision for which no planning decision was taken,” Walker claimed. 

He added that the only possibility to overturn a decision was article 39 A of the Development Planning Act. “Each time we used it, we got a lot of flak,” Walker insisted.

Walker contested Falzon’s decision to state in his reports that there was criminal responsibly by the part of MEPA officials. “If I was in his shoes, I would not make such a statement,” he insisted. “When I received the reports stating that there was criminal responsibility, my first reaction was to go to the police commissioner, but following legal advice, I decided to investigate internally,” Walker revealed. He claimed that in the four cases of criminal responsibility mentioned in the auditor’s report, the MEPA board found that there were “no reasons to proceed.”

On the question of overbuilding, which had now led to 76,000 empty properties on the market, Walker claimed that there were “different estimates” as to the size of the property market. “There are still applications at MEPA for apartments whose size would not sell in the market,” Walker insisted. However, if the application was “according to plan and scheme and not in an ODZ area, MEPA could not refuse it. The Prime Minister says no to ODZ permits. I agree that there should no residential buildings ODZ,” Walker said.

However, the MEPA Chairman conceded that with the rationalisation scheme approved in 2006, the number of building applications had increased. Asked specifically by Macdonald whether he had “the power to stop it”, Walker did not give a clear answer. “The decision to build is taken by an individual and unless it is not scheme, MEPA cannot stop it”.

He conceded that though the MEPA policy allowing a penthouse on two storeys in residential areas was adopted in 2005, there had now been “a stock of perfectly habitable two-storey houses built twenty years ago which have been re-built”.

Asked whether it would be unfair for those who want to re-build their houses if this policy was changed, Walker did not mince his words. “If there is a change in policy, then hard luck to those who have been hit,” he concluded.