Environment minister’s transparency register is not public yet

Aaron Farrugia has so far failed to publish the transparency register he set up at his ministry despite pledging to do so earlier this year.

But the Environment Minister has justified the decision, insisting that he is waiting for the outcome of a proposal being drafted by the Standards Commissioner for a government-wide lobby register.

Farrugia said he introduced an electronic register to log the names and details of meetings held with individuals and organisations soon after taking up his ministerial role earlier this year.

“The register logs the names of people that come to meet me or my secretariat and today I am in a position to know who I met on any particular day,” Farrugia told MaltaToday.

However, he refrained from giving this newspaper a list of meetings and the people involved in them.

“I have the system in place but I do not want to eclipse the work being done by the Standards Commissioner who is drawing up a proposal for a lobby register, which would be applicable across the board,” Farrugia said.

The minister said he holds regular meetings with developers, the Malta Developers Association, the Chamber of Architects and environmental groups.

“I meet these stakeholders frequently – a system that has helped to stave off controversies and more importantly move towards intelligent planning… the fruit of this work can be seen in the creation of a consultative forum for intelligent planning, the fuel stations policy and the new rural policy,” Farrugia said.

When he was appointed environment minister last January, Farrugia pledged to set up a transparency register and publish the list of all meetings with lobbyists, social partners, businesses and NGOs.

Farrugia told Opposition environment spokesperson David Thake last week in parliament that the digital system was finalised and every individual who sought a meeting at the ministry over the past nine months had their details logged.

“Meanwhile, the Commissioner for Standards in Public Life is working on a lobby register, and it would be correct to wait for the outcome of that exercise before going ahead with the transparency registry, to ensure the country adopts one model,” Farrugia replied to Thake’s parliamentary question.