Planning Authority Boss Speaks Out: No Pressure From db For My Private Jet Decision
Left: PA executive chairperson Johann Buttigieg, Right: db Group owner Silvio Debono
The Planning Authority’s executive chairperson Johann Buttigieg has insisted he wasn’t pressured by the db Group to fly a board member down from Sicily on a private jet for a vote on its high-rise project in Pembroke.
“The Authority categorically denies that any pressure was placed by the db Group to have the board member flown in,” a PA spokesperson told Lovin Malta.
Questions sent to the db Group on whether they had exerted pressure on the PA to fly Jacqueline Gili from Sicily to Malta were repeatedly ignored.
In an interview with The Times of Malta today, Buttigieg said his decision to ensure Gili’s presence at the meeting was a double-edged sword, given that the PA was harshly criticised when Environment Authority chairman Victor Axiak was absent from a 2016 vote on the Townsquare high-rise in Sliema.
In that case, Axiak’s vote was critical as the project passed by a single vote, meaning the ERA chairman voting against it would have created a deadlock and handed a casting vote to PA chairman Vince Cassar, who had opposed the project.
In last week’s case, Gili was one of ten board members who voted in favour of the db Group’s project, compared to four who voted against.
However, Buttigieg insisted he had no idea how the vote was going to go and that he wouldn’t have decided to fly Gili over had he known beforehand.
“I arrived in Malta from a holiday two days before the vote and asked the Planning Board’s secretary for a list of the board members who were going to be present for the vote,” he recounted. “The secretary mentioned two members who were going to be absent and I personally approached them both. One of them said they would be able to make it after all as their health conditions had improved and Ms Gili said she would be abroad on holiday.”
He said he opted to pay €8,750 to fly Gili over on a private jet so as to inconvenience the board member as little as possible.
“I’d have done the same to any other board member,” he said. “It could have cost us €5,000, €10,000, €15,000… it was more important to me to ensure that no one could point fingers at the PA and say the vote could have been different if a member was present.”
The PL’s president Daniel Micallef described Buttigieg’s private jet decision as “insensitive”
Government sources told Lovin Malta yesterday that Buttigieg’s justification for his decision has only aggravated the situation because there were clearly cheaper alternative means to bring Jacqueline Gili to Malta, such as by her travelling through Air Malta or the catamaran, or by her cancelling her holiday altogether.
The Labour Party’s president Daniel Micallef said he felt angry and disappointed when he heard the news of the private jet, which he described as an “insensitive” decision on the PA’s part.
Without directly referring to the incident, Labour’s CEO Randolph Debattista warned the party risks becoming the cause of its own downfall if it fails to recognise and address its own shortcomings.
Prime Minister Joseph Muscat and Infrastructure Minister Ian Borg, who is politically responsible for the PA, both said that they disagreed with Buttigieg’s decision.
The PA executive chairperson said that he has taken note of the political criticism and that he “would be an idiot” to repeat his decision for a future planning board meeting.
What should happen next?
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