Nine NGOs want ERA chairman Victor Axiak sacked

Updated 11am with Axiak's reply

Nine NGOs have written to Environment Minister Aaron Farrugia, asking him to sack Victor Axiak from his role as chair of the Environmental Resources Authority. 

Axiak, a biology professor who was appointed chair of the environmental regulator in 2016, has come under fire from environmental groups for what they described as a “spate of abysmal decisions.”

In an open letter to the minister (see below), the NGOs listed a series of ERA decisions that they said ran counter to its mandate of protecting Malta’s environment, and accused Axiak of aligning himself with the interests of "developers and roadbuilders."  

ERA decisions slammed

Those decisions ranged from ERA’s recent decision to allow carob trees to be removed in Dingli to make way for what activists have described as a “road to nowhere”, to the regulator’s failure to object to a roundabout in Burmarrad that has received more than 6,000 objections from members of the public and which activists say is a pretence to build a supermarket there. 

ERA has said it opposes the supermarket plans.

The NGOs listed other decisions to back its calls for Axiak to be moved aside: ERA's recent decision to...