Having left Mepa only recently after a decade or so working there, Bjorn Bonello explains to Mark Micallef what it is like from within.

Since its inception, some 16 years ago, the Malta Environment and Planning Authority (then the Planning Authority) has seen its fair share of controversy.

You would expect that given that it is an organisation tasked with regulating development in one of the world's smallest states where space is, of course, at a premium. The heat has however risen to unprecedented levels in the past years, with some embarrassing criticism coming from the regulator's own audit officer.

Both management and the government promise that Mepa is undergoing a reform, but the equation seems to fail to address the fundamental problem regarding the "working ants", as Mr Bonello puts it: case officers, planning technicians and other support staff at Mepa who process the authority's work before a decision is made at executive levels.

He should know since he spent all his working life so far employed with the authority, joining only a few years after it was set up.
"I would be nothing without the authority. Mepa made me what I am today... I owe it to the authority."

Shortly after joining in 1995, he was sent on a scholarship to Birmingham, along with another two students, to read for a degree in planning.

When he returned he was promoted to planning officer and remained so till he left last December. He now runs his own planning consultancy agency; a new concept since it only deals with planning issues not architectural ones, he declares proudly.

"I wasn't satisfied with my own work at Mepa... too many loose ends and very little time. There is no support system because everyone has too much on one's plate.

"You're practically alone with your case load, meetings, site visits etc. In the end, I felt that I wasn't getting enough in return and I'm not just talking about financial gain. The government had sent me to study abroad and gain expertise which I wasn't employing or being given a chance to employ.

"I couldn't dedicate the time I would have liked to each case. When I was in the major projects unit, I dealt with cases like the aquaculture zone, the extension of the Zwejra landfill, the Park and Ride project, the TEN-T road network, alone, with another 70 files pending.

"Moreover, in the summer of 2005 I was asked to help an area team, keeping my major projects case load, and it was then that I realised that the divorce was imminent.

"When you consider the site inspections that have to be made, which should be carried out in each case in an ideal world but which, in reality, are not, researching the files of the former planning board, the PAPB, which is no joke, consultations, meetings with clients and objectors as well as carrying out background research, it's a miracle that a case officer should do more than 20 files...

"In the area teams, where most applications are dealt with and numbers are paramount, basically you don't even have time to think.

"For instance, a case officer 'recycles' reports for similar developments by just changing the name of the applicant, the case numbers and a few details but that's all. A report used for a terrace house permit in Siggiewi can be used for another one in Birguma.

"The problem is that whenever there is a reform at Mepa, the main focus is on the management positions... a lot of small empires are created while the pool of case officers diminishes and is not adequately addressed.

"The end result is that we bought ourselves a Ferrari, when we merged the planning and environment functions into one authority, but we forgot the fuel - that is, human resources. I'd rather have a Lada which takes me from point A to point B," he says.

"Take the Environment Directorate, for instance. What's the use of transposing tonnes of new EU directives? If we don't have the people to enforce them, we're going to end up paying fines equivalent to the EU funds we receive." Mr Bonello paints a gloomy picture; a demoralised work force sandwiched between an unsatisfied public and a statistics-driven management.

"The shortcomings do not stem from the fact that the people there are rotten, as the criticism sometimes seems to imply, unfairly, but because it is physically impossible... There are some very valid people at Mepa with a wealth of experience and knowledge but they are utilised like machine operators.

"A case officer is excepted to assess some 23 files a month. Simple or complicated, big or small what he does is his problem.

"Nobody is going to beat you if you don't, but obviously it will be taken into account. That's fine, but there is little assessment of quality.

"Therefore, to cope, it's much easier to go for the narrowest interpretation of policy and issue refusals."

It gets worse: "In summer, in fact, when the pressure increases as the financial year nears its end in September, and the half days kick in, there is an unwritten, unspoken rule to issue refusals". With elections round the corner this tends to be relaxed, however.

"It helps ease the load and increase the statistics. In fact, if you look at the figures you will generally find more activity in the summer. "The pressures are also on the team managers. Each manager has to endorse 23 reports by as many staff members as he happens to be managing. You can have teams of six and teams of 15. You're talking about 138 to 345 files.

"As a result, the relationship between managers and staff is deteriorating. If someone is not doing so well, nobody has the time to see what's the problem with that person, so the human element is lost."

In the same way, he explains why the authority is criticised for being inconsistent, especially with big developers.

"Policies are as wide or as narrow as you want them to be. Lobbying happens with any organisation, but if you have a limping organisation, it is inevitably more exposed to this sort of influence."

But isn't the authority supposed to be autonomous?
"To begin with, the boards are full of political appointees. Whether the interference is direct or indirect, it's there.

"There are few cases I know of where the government's will was not reflected in a decision on a state project, for example.

"How else would you explain that Xaghra l-Hamra was proposed by Mepa to be developed into a golf course notwithstanding the garigue there, when the same authority would then come down on a farmer like a ton of bricks for daring to develop an inch of garigue?

"When it comes to the big developers... they have a lot of clout, because they employ a lot of people, which they seem always threatening to sack, so it's back to political pressure.
"Let me make myself clear, I am not talking about envelopes changing hands here... I never saw that happening so I cannot say it exists.

"What I know is that case officers have to justify their recommendations, for example, and some boards don't justify their decisions, especially when they overturn a previous recommendation.
"The beginning was fine, really. When I joined in 1995, the authority was smaller. We really worked well, as a team.

"With the enthusiasm and the effort of people such as Godwin Cassar and George Cilia, pioneers of Maltese planning, the idea was to cut off the authority from politics... the same politics that had marred the planning process of the 1970s and the 1980s.

"Then came the criticism that Mepa had become a government within a government and reforms started being implemented in a way that the process was speeded up and so that the government gains more control over the planning process.

"Speed is good, but if you don't improve your human resources it comes at the expense of quality.

"Certain people happen to be very lucky and end up being in the right place at the right time knowing the right people and they move on while the rest remain where they are."

So is that how the government ensures control over the authority, by influencing its structure?
"Yes, I believe so. In every planning system in the world, and rightly so, governments push their policy. The problem lies with how influence is exerted. You can't be a referee yourself, can you?

"But coming back to the point, the problems lie at the executive level, among others, with practising architects on the decision-making boards, but that issue has never been dealt with conclusively.

"When I hear the minister say, in the 2006 budget speech, that there is dead wood that needs to be removed, I ask: Who is this dead wood?

"The management, which ruled with an iron fist for the past years without getting any results, or the underlings, who are inundated with work and in reality have no influence on the decision-making process?

"Mepa is not a rotten apple. You have to understand the dynamics; you have a few people taking the decisions, good or bad, and a lot of people working in support of that.

"I get criticised by my clients at times who say that I defend the authority too much. I understand what the authority stands for and know its limitations, but I also realise that it's in some people's interest to throw mud at Mepa. You have people who thrive when there is chaos.

"I would like to see investment in the lower ends, fresh human resources and an injection of planners at the executive level. It's an irony that there is only one qualified planner on the Mepa boards.

"The local planning system is dominated by architects. We know it but nothing is done about it.
"I don't want to be disrespectful towards the profession but this is something the minister has pointed out on different occasions; architects need to be more ethical.

"There are a few architects who make a killing of the fresh plans they draft for their clients which are ultimately the result of their shortcomings not that of the authority.

"When Mepa points out the mistakes, some of which are blatant, elementary flaws or breaches of policy, the architect turns to the client, blames Mepa and presents him with fresh plans and a fresh bill.

"Architects simply do not need to be the people to file an application; they are taking no responsibility at that stage so it could be the applicant himself who files the application.

"It is easy to vilify Mepa, I'm the first one who criticises the authority, but in reality only 20 per cent of the criticism levelled at it is justified, the rest has to be seen in its proper context.

"Politicians think in five-year terms but it takes 25 years to change a culture, especially when the starting point is what we had after the 1980s. Unfortunately, the shortcut always proves to be the preferred option."

Mark Micallef
22nd August 2006 - The Times of Malta