The
MEPA is the elephant in
the room. If nothing else is achieved during this legislature, government has to
sort out the MEPA problem.
We cannot, again face another election where MEPA practically decides winners and losers and dominates the agenda, leaving the more substantial and weighty issues out of the agenda during an election campaign. We must not, again have the rush to get as many permits approved in the last week of the campaign.
The elephant must be shrunk to its proper size (maybe the size of a dog is ok) and must be tamed and rendered understandable and friendly to the population at large. We must, at all cost avoid situations where MEPA becomes a jackpot – a get rich quick scheme, where nearly worthless land suddenly turns into a gold mine, as it gets endowed with suspicious development facilities.
Otherwise the difference betweenPAPB , PA
There are better ways to do things and, as always, sunshine is the best disinfectant against corruption or suspicion thereof. Let’s allow the sun to shine over the way MEPA operates.
Firstly MEPA must be made to respect the 80 / 20 rule. Eighty percent of the applications submitted to MEPA are simple, straightforward requests which require hardly any processing and which can have little impact on the environment. The undue bureaucracy involved in the processing of such straightforward applications cause a huge amount of consternation to a large swathe of the population. It is the single most important factor that gives MEPA its bad reputation.
To take an analogy from the medical profession it is as if family doctors will have to apply to the Health Department for approval before they can prescribe medicine for a common cold. If MEPA has clear policies of what can and cannot be done in every street of every town and village, why should we not delegate the responsibility for building within such policies to the architect in charge of the development who would need only to submit plans and pay fees without having to wait for approval? Architects would then have to pull up their socks, and just like their colleagues in the medical profession they will have to know very precisely what can and what cannot be done. Failure will be punished by liability claims, imposition of corrective measures and in the end by temporary or permanent suspension of their warrant.
What’s the use of giving architects professional warrants if they cannot take primary responsibility for small developments within MEPA rules?
If the 80 per cent non contentious MEPA workload is handled in this transparent manner – respecting the norms of distributed authority – then MEPA would be able to channel its resources to the processing of the contentious 20 per cent workload, the large projects and other applications that are not covered by published policies and for which architects cannot take prior responsibility without formal approval from a central authority. And it is in such instances where MEPA has to adopt and enforce very rigid corporate governance standards.
MEPA needs to have ( probably already has) a permanent professional executive that processes and recommends such applications falling in the 20 per cent segment, but without having a final say either in approval or refusal.
MEPA would then have to have non-executive boards consisting of people who (in the selection process) are pre- screened to avoid any conflict of interest. Such boards will have representatives nominated from the government, opposition and civil society, as well as a chairman appointed with wide consultation. Such boards would have the authority to approve applications recommended by the permanent executive. They would have the authority to refuse applications recommended for refusal by the permanent executive. They will have authority to refuse applications recommended for approval by the permanent executive. But they will have no authority to approve applications that the permanent executive recommends for refusal.
Appeals from the Board decisions will have to be reviewed by a further independent board that would be composed of independent juries appointed in the same way that juries are appointed in a court of law. Such appeal boards will be presided over by a retired judge or by a president emeritus.
Ultimately the Minister responsible will have to keep the ultimate authority to override decisions and take political responsibility, provided this is done openly and with detailed explanation of the motives for which the Minister feels the need to override established authority. Ultimately the Minister is elected by the people, and he or she has to give an account of their decisions without hiding behind any MEPA veils. Ultimately, ministers are controlled by the electorate through the ballot box. In the end as they say we always get the government, and the ministers, we deserve.
Within such a system disagreement with MEPA decisions will remain but – like football referees outsideItaly
When MEPA is tamed and gains enough public confidence that it executes its functions diligently and with due respect to corporate governance standards, enough to get it out of the headlines and stop it being a tool in political warfare. Then MEPA would actually start being what it should always have been, rather than the elephant in the room.
What about the mouse? Labour’s Jason Micallef is the mouse in the Hamrun house. For as long as he stays in his position after prejudicing the integrity of the election process for Labour’s new leader by speaking publicly against one of the contestants, Labour will continue to live with a mouse in its house. While MEPA has to be shrunk from elephant size to dog size, the position of Labour’s general secretary has to be filled by someone whose abilities and experience are at least dog size, not mouse size.
We cannot, again face another election where MEPA practically decides winners and losers and dominates the agenda, leaving the more substantial and weighty issues out of the agenda during an election campaign. We must not, again have the rush to get as many permits approved in the last week of the campaign.
The elephant must be shrunk to its proper size (maybe the size of a dog is ok) and must be tamed and rendered understandable and friendly to the population at large. We must, at all cost avoid situations where MEPA becomes a jackpot – a get rich quick scheme, where nearly worthless land suddenly turns into a gold mine, as it gets endowed with suspicious development facilities.
Otherwise the difference between
There are better ways to do things and, as always, sunshine is the best disinfectant against corruption or suspicion thereof. Let’s allow the sun to shine over the way MEPA operates.
Firstly MEPA must be made to respect the 80 / 20 rule. Eighty percent of the applications submitted to MEPA are simple, straightforward requests which require hardly any processing and which can have little impact on the environment. The undue bureaucracy involved in the processing of such straightforward applications cause a huge amount of consternation to a large swathe of the population. It is the single most important factor that gives MEPA its bad reputation.
To take an analogy from the medical profession it is as if family doctors will have to apply to the Health Department for approval before they can prescribe medicine for a common cold. If MEPA has clear policies of what can and cannot be done in every street of every town and village, why should we not delegate the responsibility for building within such policies to the architect in charge of the development who would need only to submit plans and pay fees without having to wait for approval? Architects would then have to pull up their socks, and just like their colleagues in the medical profession they will have to know very precisely what can and what cannot be done. Failure will be punished by liability claims, imposition of corrective measures and in the end by temporary or permanent suspension of their warrant.
What’s the use of giving architects professional warrants if they cannot take primary responsibility for small developments within MEPA rules?
If the 80 per cent non contentious MEPA workload is handled in this transparent manner – respecting the norms of distributed authority – then MEPA would be able to channel its resources to the processing of the contentious 20 per cent workload, the large projects and other applications that are not covered by published policies and for which architects cannot take prior responsibility without formal approval from a central authority. And it is in such instances where MEPA has to adopt and enforce very rigid corporate governance standards.
MEPA needs to have ( probably already has) a permanent professional executive that processes and recommends such applications falling in the 20 per cent segment, but without having a final say either in approval or refusal.
MEPA would then have to have non-executive boards consisting of people who (in the selection process) are pre- screened to avoid any conflict of interest. Such boards will have representatives nominated from the government, opposition and civil society, as well as a chairman appointed with wide consultation. Such boards would have the authority to approve applications recommended by the permanent executive. They would have the authority to refuse applications recommended for refusal by the permanent executive. They will have authority to refuse applications recommended for approval by the permanent executive. But they will have no authority to approve applications that the permanent executive recommends for refusal.
Appeals from the Board decisions will have to be reviewed by a further independent board that would be composed of independent juries appointed in the same way that juries are appointed in a court of law. Such appeal boards will be presided over by a retired judge or by a president emeritus.
Ultimately the Minister responsible will have to keep the ultimate authority to override decisions and take political responsibility, provided this is done openly and with detailed explanation of the motives for which the Minister feels the need to override established authority. Ultimately the Minister is elected by the people, and he or she has to give an account of their decisions without hiding behind any MEPA veils. Ultimately, ministers are controlled by the electorate through the ballot box. In the end as they say we always get the government, and the ministers, we deserve.
Within such a system disagreement with MEPA decisions will remain but – like football referees outside
When MEPA is tamed and gains enough public confidence that it executes its functions diligently and with due respect to corporate governance standards, enough to get it out of the headlines and stop it being a tool in political warfare. Then MEPA would actually start being what it should always have been, rather than the elephant in the room.
What about the mouse? Labour’s Jason Micallef is the mouse in the Hamrun house. For as long as he stays in his position after prejudicing the integrity of the election process for Labour’s new leader by speaking publicly against one of the contestants, Labour will continue to live with a mouse in its house. While MEPA has to be shrunk from elephant size to dog size, the position of Labour’s general secretary has to be filled by someone whose abilities and experience are at least dog size, not mouse size.
No comments:
Post a Comment