Government & Politics
AD 'pleasantly surprised' by Xemxija mudslide report
By Ruth Davies
Apr 15, 2006, 19:28

Addressing a Press Conference at the Xemxija By-pass Dr Harry Vassallo, Chairperson of Alternattiva Demoktratika (AD) said that he was pleasantly surprised by the frankness and the thoroughness of the report produced by the Board of Inquiry appointed to investigate the mudslide which occurred at Xemxija last January.

"We have awaited such an official pronouncement for many years and had given up hope that anything of the sort would ever be made," Dr Vassallo said. "None of the report contents are a surprise except for the specific statistics of the case in question but to have them so clearly articulated at long last is a cause for celebration," he added.

"It is now no longer an allegation made by us that MEPA has been weak with the strong and strong with the weak. The facts are there for all to see," Dr Vassallo continued. "MEPA (Malta Environment and Planning Authority) has failed to use the powers of enforcement at its disposal to such an extent that it can justifiably be considered to have invited further infringements and thereby became responsible for the irremediable damage caused over many years," he asserted. 'The fact that one developer accumulated 82 enforcement and stop notices and blissfully ignored them for years is bad enough. That MEPA was not moved to do something about such a situation until a near catastrophe occurred is worse," Dr Vassallo said.

"Both the description of the existing situation and the recommendations for reform made by the Board of Inquiry raise a challenge to the existing political power structure which will be caught between the evident need to bring about a return to legality and the hidden interests which have allowed matters to drift so far away from what all reasonable citizens have a right to expect from their government," Dr Vassallo continued.

"The relaxation of planning rules at election time and the absence of effective enforcement of existing rules have fostered a culture of outrageous development applications which have reached plague proportions overwhelming MEPA staff as well as NGOs and third party objectors. The law has been a sham for many years and the situation has now reached crisis levels," Dr Vassallo said.


Mark Causon AD Spokesperson for the Environment and Rural Affairs said: "It is absurd that any government can think of boasting of environmental improvements while the planning and environmental watchdog is reduced to impotence." "Maltese governments have to make up their minds whom they serve, a handful of developers wreaking havoc on heritage and natural assets or the voters who entrust them with political power. The challenge is there for the present government and for the next and for the one after.”


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