[WATCH] PN leader supports MEPA amnesty for 'small infringements'

Simon Busuttil supports amnesty for 'small' infringements • Video by Ray Attard

Opposition leader Simon Busuttil is in favour of an amnesty by the Malta Environment and Planning Authority (MEPA) for “small” infringements but the Opposition will not support an amnesty for excessive ones.

MEPA will soon be proposing to the Cabinet an amnesty to sanction long-standing illegal developments, thus tackling a substantial number of MEPA’s 10,000 pending enforcement cases.

If the amnesty as proposed by MEPA is approved by the Muscat cabinet, the authority is expected to rake in in excess of €20 million. The scheme will apply to all infringements that took place before 2013 and those outside development zones that took place before the full establishment of the planning authority in 1994.

In comments to MaltaToday, Busuttil said one had yet to see what the government was proposing: “The government has not yet informed the opposition of any such plans, nor there were any consultations. I can’t comment on something I’m not aware of.”

He went on to remind that the PN’s electoral manifesto for the 2013 elections had included the possibility of an amnesty “but on small infringements”.

“There are certain cases which are unacceptable and that is why they were never sanctioned in the first place.”

Busuttil said he hoped that the government was not going to be “a prisoner of its own electoral pledges” on this issue as well.

“Giving an amnesty for excessive infringements is unacceptable. The government may be a prisoner of its own electoral pledges, just as it was with the promises made to the monti hawkers and other promises.”