Kaizenlog

Mepa’s audit officer, Joe Falzon, says his office is swamped by
complaints and he is finding it difficult to cope.

“At the moment, frankly, I am swamped. After the Mistra case,
particularly, and the media exposure it was given, I was
inundated with complaints and I’m not coping,” he said.

After his investigating officer, Carmel Cacopardo, was not
reappointed, the audit office never really picked up the pace, Mr
Falzon added.

Mr Cacopardo’s reappointment had become the centre of a bitter
tug-of-war between Mepa chairman Andrew Calleja, Mr Falzon and Mr
Cacopardo, which eventually led to repeated resignation threats
by the auditor.

Mepa insisted that Mr Cacopardo’s position was untenable,
particularly in view of a conflict of interest stemming from the
fact that he publicly questioned the credentials of the man
appointed director for environment protection, a post for which
Mr Cacopardo himself had applied.

Both the auditor and Mr Cacopardo rebutted the claims publicly,
with Mr Falzon insisting that the choice of the investigating
officer was ultimately his and not Mepa’s.

The Mepa chairman at one point had asked Ombudsman Joseph Said
Pullicino to intervene. While turning down the request to step in
as arbiter, the Ombudsman proposed that his office services the
audit office’s administrative needs to compensate for the loss of
the investigating officer.

At one point the talks between the Ombudsman and Mr Falzon on the
proposal appeared as though they might stall but an agreement was
eventually reached and the audit officer accepted the offer.

When asked about this new arrangement, Mr Falzon said that, so
far, the two offices were still trying to link up through IT.
“We’ll install that and see how it works… Unfortunately it took
us a long time,” he said, adding that the previous arrangement
with a part-time investigating officer attached to his office was
the ideal set up.

It is clear Mr Falzon remains sore about the matter. In fact, at
a business breakfast on Mepa reform yesterday, he insisted, as he
had done on previous occasions, that Mr Cacopardo’s effective
dismissal was an example of why the planning authority ended up
in the bad situation it is now.

“It’s a question of political will at the end of the day… He
(Mr Cacopardo) was doing a good job, efficiently, but he was
removed simply because he dared criticise the chairman, that is
the minister,” Mr Falzon said.

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