Meet the CEO | Ian Stafrace

Ian Stafrace, who had himself drafted the new planning laws, which cast the MEPA reform in stone, is now entrusted with the daily administrative running of an authority whose reform was one of the Prime Minister’s major political promises.

But Stafrace’s direct appointment in the absence of a call for applications has created controversy. Does he feel comfortable being chosen in this way?

“If, for any reason, the fact that I was directly appointed would have impaired my judgement, my operational activities, my liberty in taking decisions, I would have literally said: ‘listen, I am not interested in the post’…”

But Stafrace insists that this was not the case.

What irks him is that, rather than being criticised for not being up to the job, he is being criticised for the way he was appointed.

“Honestly it does bother me that instead of discussing the substance people would discuss the form. If people criticise me for not being up to the job it would have been a different matter… it does deviate attention from the real issues.”

Stafrace’s pay package includes a gross salary of €65,000, which will increase to €70,000 from the second year onwards. 

People tend to be shocked when these salaries are offered in the public sector, even if these salaries are common in high managerial posts in the private sector.

“As soon as I took this post I knew immediately that my package would be made public. I knew what the private sector would have offered me for a similar post. I know colleagues in the private sector who earn more than this. It might look like a massive salary but it reflects the responsibilities of this office.”

MEPA Chairman Austin Walker was originally appointed as MEPA’s Executive Chairman, a post that included the duties of a CEO. 

Now Walker’s role will be limited to that of Chairman. But his €93,000 salary will only be revised after a “transition” period between the two MEPA officials, which is expected to take months.

Why is this transition expected to take so long?

According to Stafrace, the major reason for this is that the scale of the work involved during this crucial phase of reforming the institution.

“Apart from Transport Malta, MEPA is one of the biggest authorities on the island. It manages something which is critical for everyone – the environment.”

Despite the appointment of a CEO – a role envisioned in the new MEPA law – the chairman still occupies a critical role.

“I am fortunate enough to have Austin Walker as chairman, a person who has been doing a sterling job in bring about this reform.” 

Moreover, reforming the authority is not a matter of simply enacting a law, but an ongoing process.“

One of the main thrusts of the reform is that the Authority has to render itself flexible enough to be pro-active and reactive. These aspects of the reform cannot occur within a day or two.”

In view of all this, Stafrace makes it clear that there can be no return to the time when chairing MEPA was done on a part time basis.

“It is true that the day to day running is vested in this office. But the role and profile of the chairman is essential… I can hardly think of a situation where MEPA will be run by a part time chairman as it was in the past.”

One justification for having a full time chairman is the frequency of MEPA board meetings. “I do not think that there is any other authority in the country whose board meets once a week. There are even times when the board meets twice in the space of a week. Even chairing the board is an enormous task in itself. It does not just involve determining planning applications. A lot of time is taken in formulating strategic plans, programmes and policies.”

Prior to his appointment, Stafrace was a partner of the legal firm Abela, Stafrace & Associates Advocates, entrusted with a substantial part of MEPA’s legal caseload and while providing legal advice to the authority. Upon his appointment, Stafrace resigned from the firm. “I could not see any other option.”

Apart from his role in the firm Stafrace has also stopped taking any new legal work. The sole exception to this is some “particular assignments” commenced prior to his appointment, which he has to finalise.

Now, Stafrace finds himself in a situation where he is the CEO of the authority, which subcontracts work to his former firm, now in the hands of the President’s son Robert Abela and his wife Lydia Abela, the Labour Party’s executive secretary.

He explains that the firm was originally chosen by MEPA after a call for expression of interest. According to Stafrace, the Authority has the power to terminate the “appointment” at any moment in time.

He also specifies that Abela, Stafrace & Associates Advocates is one of two companies conducting legal work at MEPA, together with another lawyer who is involved in issues related to human relations.

Does the fact that he is now CEO favour his former company, vis-à-vis other firms who might be interested in doing the same work in MEPA?

“Obviously, if anyone wants to discuss the role of this firm in the authority, I won’t be involved in that discussion. But as long as the firm offers its service to the level the authority it expects from it, I do not envisage any problem. If the Authority feels that it should entrust someone else, it is ultimately the Authority’s call, as it is the client. But I do not recall any particular incident were the firm had any complaints from the Authority related to the level of service.”

How important is to have a legal mind at MEPA’s helm?

“I do not think I was chosen for this role because I am a lawyer.”

But he does acknowledge that his past experience as a lawyer specialising in planning issues is to his advantage.

“From a legal point of view, and judging from my own experience and that of colleagues of mine, environmental law has become in itself a field of specialisation and this is even greater with the MEPA reform…”

Stafrace was one of the architects of the MEPA reform, which he has to implement in his new role as CEO. “I was entrusted to draft the new act… I cannot deny the fact that this is definitely helping me in my job.”

One of the main advantages is that his past experiences have helped him build relationship with most employees within MEPA and this today helps him have a “holistic point of view.”

Stafrace is determined to make MEPA more efficient and service oriented while always keeping in mind its principle mission – that of protecting the environment.

The kind of change he wants to bring about is best summed up in his attitude towards planning applications.

“I would rather be processing things which give a result to the client, rather than spend five or six years processing applications only to tell the applicant that the application was a non-starter. We should be a service oriented Authority”.

This is one of the prime benefits of MEPA’s newly introduced screening process. Before actually being validated, a new application passes through a four-week scrutiny period, after which the developer is informed whether he needs to submit further information or studies, and whether any particular policies are being breached.

He reveals that since the new law came in place in January, in 10% of cases the developer is being informed that the application is a non-starter and is therefore being dissuaded from going ahead with a full development application.

This could even be one of the factors contributing to the decrease in applications presented by developers, thus ironically contributing to a loss of income for MEPA. Whereas the pre-screening fee costs a developer €50, full development applications cost much more.

The pre-screening process was one of the results of a MEPA reform enacted through the law drafted by Stafrace. Through the MEPA reform, simple applications within a development zone have to be decided in 12 weeks after a four-week pre-screening period.

Stafrace is satisfied not just because the deadlines are being met but also because of the way this has changed the planning process. “For me, the four-week pre-screening process is a benchmark. We are meeting the deadline. But we are not just limiting ourselves to respect the deadline.  We are interested in the results as well. I am positively impressed with the level that our officers are dedicating to the screening process.”

While in 10% of cases the client is informed bluntly that the application is unacceptable in principle (even if he is free to proceed with the application) in 20% to 30% of cases clients are being told that while some aspects of the project are unacceptable they can make improvements.

“In these cases the applicant has the chance of making changes in the time between the screening process and the actual formal application”.

Stafrace compares this situation with the planning regime in place before the reform.

“These persons used to apply, pay the full fee and go through the whole planning process, which at times would have taken months, only to get a negative result at the very end. Or even worse, they would have started with a non-starter application only to submit revisions of plans during the process itself, in a way which would have lengthened the process”. 

The Authority has also committed itself to informing its clients for certain minor development cases, instead of submitting a costly full application, they can submit a Development Notification or a minor application which are processed in a much shorter timeframe.

MEPA has recently raised its tariffs considerably to become a self-financing authority. But does it make sense to have developers finance aspects of environmental protection, which have nothing to do with planning applications?

Stafrace makes it clear that fees have not simply been increased to finance other aspects of the authority but also to factor in the full costs of applications, some of which are very complex. He also says that 12 months after the tariffs were introduced, discussions are still ongoing on this matter. 

He also acknowledges the fact that the higher tariffs as well as the pre-screening process could have contributed to a reduction in the number of planning applications.

“This reduction can be attributed to a number of factors including the fees and the economic downturn and the screening process itself. If you have 10% of applications which are deemed to breach policies at screening stage, this means that a chunk of people who would have normally applied are no longer doing so, thus bringing down the number of application.”

One of the first challenges Stafrace had to confront was the Hexagon house saga, which saw MEPA employees complaining of bad odours in the building housing MEPA’s own Environment Protection directorate.

Will there ever be a closure to this issue?

He insists that MEPA cannot simply address this issue from the point of view of an employer. “If we were simply the employers and not the environmental agency we would have looked at Hexagon House in isolation. But as an environmental agency we have a duty to both our employees and the nation in general.”

He immediately set out on three tasks: identifying the source of problem, examining air quality in the area and improving the internal environment of the Hexagon building. But identifying the source of the problem topped his to-do list.

After MEPA concluded that the source of the problem was primarily related to petroleum and fuel, it focused its attention on two establishment in the Marsa area Mediterranean Offshore Bunkering Co. Ltd. (MOBC) and  Falzon Waste Oils.

He categorically denies that MEPA has used two weights and two measures by issuing a stop notice against MOBC and not against Falzon Waste Oils.

According to the CEO, MEPA met both companies. But while MOBC insisted that they have nothing to do with the problem and refused to stop operations, Falzon Waste Oils was more reactive, and even stopped most of their petroleum related operations.

Stafrace claims that this has brought about an improvement in the situation.

“I am not a technical person but my understanding is that there has been a stark improvement since MOBC ceased operations. It was evident that the lack of filtering in the tank storage of MOBC was a major cause to the problem.”

For Stafrace, the Hexagon house saga is symptomatic of a small country, where industrial plants are in proximity of residential areas.

“An installation like MOBC in another country would be located miles away from residences and you would not even think of filtering.”

As regards air-quality in the building itself, Stafrace insists that samples taken by experts show that air quality levels do not exceed threshold. But MEPA is changing the ventilation system within the building.

Ultimately he refrains from declaring the case solved, insisting that it is inevitable that a working port like Marsa is bound to create environmental problems.

“The problem  has been mitigated to a high degree but I won’t say that it has been completely solved. We are moving in the right direction.”

MEPA is even holding discussions with Transport Malta to ensure that venting of vessel tanks is conducted at sea rather than onshore.

One of the things, which have come to characterise MEPA after the reform, is livelier discussion on its boards, which was evident in the lack of anonymity in controversial decisions like that involving the Arriva development in Zebbug.

“More often than not MEPA is criticised not just on the decision but the way decisions are taken. People question the consistency with past decisions as well as the reasons given for approving a project or not. We are trying to enhance transparency and that is why we are having  more healthy debates at board level.”