Momentum has reiterated its support of the eleven student organisations and dozens of NGOs calling on Prime Minister Robert Abela to remove Johann Buttigieg from his post as Chief Executive of the Planning Authority. The Party has also stated that the Planning Authority needs to be ”rebuilt.”
It argued that ”his removal is necessary but not sufficient, and this is only the first step towards the full refoundation of an Authority that has lost the country’s confidence.”
Momentum leader Arnold Cassola said, ”the Prime Minister has not dared to answer the students’ call for the resignation of Buttigieg. He tells us that the messages between Johann Buttigieg and Yorgen Fenech have been in the public domain for years and that there is nothing new in them. That is precisely the scandal. The government knew what was in those messages and reappointed him anyway, in January 2025, to run the single institution that decides what happens with Malta’s land.”
Cassola insisted that ”a regulator who discusses business opportunities with the very interests he is meant to regulate cannot hold public office. When eleven student organisations put their names to the same demand, the Prime Minister is no longer facing us who he can dismiss as partisan. He is facing the generation that will live with the consequences of every permit issued under this man’s watch.”
Momentum also expressed serious concern at Moviment Graffitti’s claim that ”Planning Authority employees are being pressured into signing a petition supporting their CEO, and that they fear the consequences of refusing.”
“If these reports are accurate, then public employees are forcibly being made to support the reputation of their own boss while their jobs are threatened,” Cassola said. “Nobody on a public payroll should be asked to take a political position on their superior’s future. This claim must be investigated independently, and any employee who comes forward must be protected.”
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