Prime Minister Robert Abela refuses to explain his sudden U-turn on changing planning rules when he completely dismissed such an exercise less than two years ago.

In an interview with The Times of Malta in November 2022, the prime minister boldly stated that the 2006 local plans could not be changed and that he was adamantly against such a suggestion.

Abela, a former advisor at the Planning Authority, insisted that changing the local plans would cause injustice and impinge on the people’s property rights.

“Nobody, not even the Opposition, has contested the local plans. If we had to do that, we would create great uncertainty in the country. Property value would change drastically, causing huge, dangerous uncertainty,” the prime minister stated on 6 November 2022.

“We cannot revoke people’s property rights. But there are other ways around it, including incentivising people to buy old properties, investing €700 million more in open spaces and improving regulations on the aesthetic beauty and preservation of buildings,” he added.

Two years ago, the prime minister said changes to local plans were unjust.

Less than two years later, Abela completely changed his stance for the sake of two entrepreneurs – the developers known as tal-Franċiż (Villa Rosa project) and Tal-Malla (illegal cluster of houses and cement plant built on ODZ in Gozo).

When asked to justify his U-turn, the prime minister did not reply.

The prime minister’s exceptions

The Shift revealed that the prime minister, through a cabinet decision he pushed, ordered the Planning Authority to change two plans to specifically appease two families: Toni Camilleri, a developer and political party funder known as tal-Franċiż, and the owners of Gozitan contractors Vella Brothers Right Mic Ltd, known as tal-Malla.

Camilleri has been pushing to build a massive tourist development on the Villa Rosa site in St George’s Bay for years and is now planning to build four massive hotels. The Malta Hotels and Restaurants Association has warned the country is already saturated with such facilities.

Local plans are being changed in the St George’s Bay area because they do not permit the proposed development by tal-Franċiż.

This was not the first concession Abela made to the multi-millionaire. Through the Lands Authority, the government sold a public alley that crosses through Camilleri’s proposed project at a heavily reduced price just two days before the last elections.

The National Audit Office (NAO) is now investigating the deal.

The second local plan changes are directed at Tal-Malla contractors, who are converting the prime minister’s farmhouse in Gozo’s Xewkija into a boutique hotel.

Robert Abela’s hotel in Xewkija

In the ’90s, tal-Malla‘s extended family built various residences in an ODZ area, Ta’ Gargun, just 300 metres away from the Xewkija airstrip. The homes, some of which complete with pools, were all built illegally and without a permit and were all hit with enforcement orders issued by the Planning Authority – these were never acted on.

The prime minister now wants to change the rules for the area, amending its definition from ODZ to a developable area so that his farmhouse contractors can have their illegalities straightened out. This happened after the family complained about the inconvenience of the planned Gozo airstrip extension.

This change will increase the value of tal-Malla’s cluster of illegal residences, which currently cannot be sold due to the fact that they were built without permits.