MPs adopt Standards’ ethics breach report on Michael Farrugia

Government MPs on the committee for public standards have abstained on whether to adopt a report by the Standards Commissioner on former planning secretary Michael Farrugia’s actions in approving the Mrieħel high-rise zone after public consultation had been concluded.

MPs on the standards committee adopted the report, which found an ethics breach by Farrugia, after the two Opposition members voted in favour.

Government whip Andy Ellul said the reason for the abstention was that the MPs would not give a conclusive vote on the report without first hearing the submissions of Michael Farrugia in the commitee.

Earlier on in the meeting, Nationalist MP Mark Anthony Sammut said the committee should probe further the case with more questions, in a continuation of the investigation. But Ellul said such an eventuality was only possible in the case that a Standards probe does not deliver a conclusive decision on an ethics breach

The government MPs said it was the right of Michael Farrugia to give his own submissions on the decision of the Standards Commissioner. But the Speaker insisted that in cases where a breach of code of ethics has been determined, the Standards committee could invite the person implicated to present their submissions on the decision, only if the report is adopted by the committee.

The former planning parliamentary secretary, Michael Farrugia, breached ethical standards when he gave incorrect information on how the Mrieħel area had been included as a high-rise zone, after public consultation on the policy had been concluded.

High rise planning policy: Mriehel included by stealth

The investigation prompted by independent election candidate Arnold Cassola in 2020 exonerated Farrugia from accusations that he lied about his meeting with Yorgen Fenech at Castille in 2014. But Standards Commissioner Joseph Azzopardi found that Farrugia “did not say the truth” when attributing the decision to include Mrieħel as a high-rise zone to a committee evaluating public feedback on a new policy that was being drafted in 2014.

The 2014 meeting with Fenech took place on the day that Farrugia informed the Planning Authority CEO on government’s direction to include Mrieħel as a high-rise zone.

At the time a new policy defining areas where high-rise buildings could go up was being drafted and it came into force in May of 2014.

Fenech’s family company, Tumas Group, had an interest in the Mrieħel zone and subsequently was involved in a joint venture project with the Gasan Group to develop the high-rise Quad Towers.

The implication is that Mrieħel’s inclusion as a high-rise zone came about after the meeting in Castille.

However, Farrugia and then PA CEO Johann Buttigieg, who was also present for the meeting, both denied the Mrieħel issue had been discussed.

Referring to Farrugia’s comment to the Times six years later that he did not have “such a meeting” with Fenech, the Standards Commissioner said the MP did not lie because his words implied that he did not meet Fenech on the Mrieħel issue and not that he never met Fenech.

But the commissioner does not appear to have bought into Farrugia’s explanation that he was referring to an inter-ministerial committee when he told the Times the Mrieħel suggestion emanated from a committee evaluating public feedback.

A list of meetings that Yorgen Fenech had at Castille between 2013 and 2017 was presented as evidence during the public inquiry into the murder of journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia.