PM to replace PA chairman as cull of Muscat connections continues

Jeffrey Pullicino Orlando is the favourite candidate for the job!
He knows how to deal with canals and roots!

A case in point was the EPRT?s approval of the db Group?s massive and controversial development at the former ITS campus in St George?s Bay, which was later revoked by the courts, only to be before the courts once again now.

The case of the db Group’s first proposal for the former ITS campus was a perfect illustration of Martin Saliba being ”a fair and decent man”. Saliba, then chairman of the EPRT — a personal position with a complete conflict-of-interest, given he was a PA employee! — literally shouted down the main objection to the PA vote favourable to the db ITS proposal brought by the NGO group. This pointed out that a PA member Matthew Pace had a clear conflict-of-interest with the PA vote as he was an employee of an organisation advertising apartments in that same development. Benignly looking on this ”beserker” performance was the then-legal adviser to the PA, one Robert Abela. The NGO group took the matter up to the Appeals Court, with a series of objections. Then-Mr. Justice Mark Chetcuti dealt with the case in short shrift, saying that he felt he should only consider the first objection — that of Matthew Pace’s conflict of interest. That he found justified in a 15-minute summing up and so the PA vote was annulled. So much for Saliba’s fairness and decency.
Yet more: you say that the db ITS proposal is again before the Courts. Martin Saliba has much to do with that, too. When the ‘repeat’ db ITS came up before the Planning Authority, Saliba had been translated to the PA chairmanship by his old friend Robert Abela, by then Prime Minister. Literally a few minutes before the start of the PA session, the members were told that the original sentence of Mr. Justice Chetcuti had stipulated that PA members present for the first vote should abstain if the same proposal came again to the vote. That ”edict”, regrettably swallowed whole by people who should have known better, had several pieces of Saliba’s “fairness”” and ”decency”. The first and most obvious one was that the first Appeal Court sentence contained a caution to be careful of their position regarding conflicts of interest for potential second voters and not at all prohibition. The second was that although, as described by its own architects, db ITS no.2 had significant differences from db ITS no.1, it was given the same PA number. The third was that Pembroke Council which had a vote was warned to change its representative for the db ITS no.2 PA meeting so as not to fall under the original — fake — prohibition of a second vote. A very sly touch this for Pembroke, though a Labour Council, was committed to voting against because of very heavy pressure from residents. But that fair and decent person had done his sums, which said that if he could get away with his ”interpretation” of the first Appeals Court sentence, the db ITS no.2 would scrape home 4-3. Which is what happened. And when it went to the PA Appeals Tribunal, this last produced a 100-page refutation of the NGO case, bearing the paw-marks of that other decent and honest man Robert Musumeci. And so we are back to the Appeals Court. And perhaps Martin Saliba might be penning that eternal squeal heard when ”honest, decent” men are let down by their ”honest, decent” friends: Et tu Brute?