MEPA taghna lkoll

Published: April 17, 2013 at 6:43pm

So MEPA’s chief executive, Ian Stafrace, and now its environment director, Petra Caruana Dingli, have resigned. The prime minister has said that he is not quite sure whether to accept their resignations, and that we will have his decision in a matter of hours.

This is all rot, of course. There is a difference between offering your resignation and resigning. If they have resigned, they have resigned and that’s it. It’s not up to the prime minister to accept it or not. He only has that choice with the offer of a resignation, whereas a resignation is a final decision by the person who has resigned.

Ian Stafrace is yet another example of how it was the Nationalist government, and not Muscat’s government, which worked with people of different political sympathies and appointed them to public office. Stafrace was Labour-leaning and a partner in George Abela’s (later his son Robert’s) law firm. In 2003 he contested the local council elections as an independent, at a time when independent was a byword for Labour.

Unfortunately there were transparency and conflict of interest issues because that same law firm carried on with the MEPA’s entire case-load under contract, but the word is that Stafrace was a good CEO and respected for it.

The information I have is that he resigned because as he was completely by-passed in all decisions taken over the past few weeks since Labour got into government. Stafrace’s PA was transferred to another office without Stafrace being informed about it beforehand, still less consulted. He was not consulted, either, on decisions taken about other personnel.

The individual now being mentioned as Ian Stafrace’s CEO replacement is Johann Buttigieg, a galoppin of Michael Farrugia, the parliamentary secretary responsible for the MEPA.




9 Comments Comment

  1. canon says:

    Everything is going to the dogs.

  2. Neil Dent says:

    Could they be any more brazen?

  3. Jozef says:

    Hilarious how The Times tries to depict it as an ‘offer’, whereas Maltatoday will have her hanged, drawn and quartered; Petra Bianchi a ‘political appointee’ and one by Mario De Marco, of all people.

    Fact is, at no point was Mepa as rigid, technocratic and as advanced an authority as these past years. Anyone who chooses to digress, either has their abuse to sanction or is plain outdated.

    If it has to be fragmentation of policy, killing any deterrent, as Muscat looks bound to deliver, it could be his undoing.
    Gonzi was ‘punished’ for having bridled abuse and having the gall to define boundaries, problem is, when a bunch of charlatans took up lobbying, government was at fault.

    Caqnu just put up a tower crane in Balluta.

  4. taxxu says:

    Who’s the oligarchy now?

  5. trapezoid says:

    I think the reason for his resignation is more insidious than him being by-passed.

    Dr. Stafrace is well versed in environmental legislation and EU environment directives. He knows very well that there is no way that the Maltese government can avoid having an Environmental Impact Assessment for the new power plant at Delimara.

    I can only speculate but I think he resigned because he refuses to endorse a decision which he knows to be illegal.

    The same applies to Petra Bianchi. It is no coincidence that the two resigned virtually simultaneously.

  6. Christian Zerafa says:

    I am pleased to have read this article. The information you have is correct although it’s only a fraction of the actual facts.

    I wish I could tell you more.

    Dr Stafrace is a true gentleman.

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