Student organisations demand Johann Buttigieg to resign

Several student organsiations including the University Students’ Council have signed a letter to Prime Minister Robert Abela demanding Johann Buttigieg to resign.

As Executive Chairman of the Planning Authority, Johann Buttigieg has been involved in insider-trading deals with Yorgen Fenech, but Prime Minister overlooked these offences and re-appointed him again to the post.

In their letter, the student organisations said that Johann Buttigieg’s position has become “untenable”, arguing that a regulator who offered to enter into business with someone whose interests he was responsible for regulating could no longer retain the public confidence required by his office.

They also rejected Prime Minister Robert Abela’s defence that the messages had already been in the public domain for years. While portions of the chats had previously been reported, the organisations pointed out that the correspondence was only published in full this month.

Even if the government had known about all the messages beforehand, they argued, this only raises further questions about why Johann Buttigieg was reappointed.

“If the Government knew, it must explain why it reappointed him. If it did not know enough to judge them, it must explain how he was vetted,” the organisations said.

The students also linked  JohannButtigieg’s continued tenure directly to the wider debate over planning reform, arguing that changing Malta’s planning laws would be meaningless without confidence in the people responsible for applying them.

They said young people will ultimately live with the consequences of the Planning Authority’s decisions long after today’s political leaders and officials have left office.

“No amendment, however well drafted, will deliver what it promises while the Authority that has to apply it is led by someone who offered his partnership to a businessman whose interests he was supposed to regulate,” they said.

The organisations concluded with one of the strongest passages in their letter, placing responsibility directly on the government for Johann Buttigieg remaining in office.

“We have read what everyone else in the country has now read, and there is only one conclusion consistent with the standards public office demands. Mr Buttigieg cannot remain at the head of the Planning Authority, and a Government that leaves him there has made his conduct its own.”

The letter was signed by Front Żgħażagħ għall-Ambjent (FŻA), Kunsill Studenti Universitarji (KSU), Studenti Demokristjani Maltin (SDM), Students for Liberty, Young European Federalists (JEF) Malta, Society for Architecture and Civil Engineering Students (SACES), Għaqda Studenti tat-Teoloġija (GħST), Earth Systems Association (ESA), History of Art and Fine Arts Students’ Association (HoASA), Malta International Relations Students Association (MIRSA), and Classics and Archaeology Students’ Association (CASA).

The letter in full is being copied below.

The Hon. Prime Minister

Office of the Prime Minister

Auberge de Castille

Valletta

The Hon. Dr Jonathan Attard

Minister for Infrastructure, Planning and Employment

Block B, Triq Francesco Buonamici

Floriana

Subject: The removal of Mr Johann Buttigieg from the Planning Authority

14 September 2026

Dear Prime Minister,

Dear Minister,

We write jointly following the publication in full by Times of Malta on 9 September 2026 of the exchanges between Mr Johann Buttigieg, head of the Planning Authority, and Mr Yorgen Fenech. Five days have now passed since that publication, yet Mr Buttigieg has not resigned and the Government has taken no step to end his tenure. We therefore call upon the Government to do so without further delay, by requiring his resignation or, failing that, by removing him.

The exchanges show the head of Malta’s planning regulator, while in office, assuring a businessman whose interests fell within his remit that he would go into business with him wherever he wished, and discussing the businessman’s own planning matters with him. They show him, when asked by the same businessman about another developer, disclosing information about that developer’s project on the day it came before the Authority’s board, and discussing that developer’s affairs and finances with him, to nobody’s benefit but the businessman’s.

Conduct of that kind cannot be squared with the office. Those appointed to public office hold it in trust for the people, not for the most powerful among them, and few offices carry that trust more heavily than the one responsible for regulating what may be built in a country where a single planning decision can change the use and value of land and the character of a whole community. A regulator who offers his partnership to a businessman he was appointed to regulate has shown whom he serves, and it is not the public. The confidence on which the office depends has gone with that, and it will not come back while he remains in post. His position is untenable.

You have observed, Prime Minister, that these messages have been in the public domain for years and that their publication reveals nothing new. With respect, that is not an answer to the question in front of you. Parts of the correspondence were reported in 2021; the whole of it has been published only now, and the country is seeing for the first time how far it went. Even if every word had been known since 2021, time does not wash conduct of this kind clean. The years in between were not years in which the matter was examined and Mr Buttigieg cleared, and what was incompatible with the office in 2019 is no less so today. If, as you say, these exchanges were already public when the Government brought Mr Buttigieg back to the head of the Authority in January 2025, after a period working for developers the Authority regulates, then it reappointed him with the material already before it. If the Government knew, it must explain why it reappointed him. If it did not know enough to judge them, it must explain how he was vetted. There is no third answer, and either way the responsibility for his continued tenure rests with the Government.

We write as organisations of young people who will live in the buildings this Authority permits, walk the streets it shapes and look out on the land whose development it sanctions, long after those who take its decisions have left public life. For years we have pushed for a thorough reform of Malta’s planning laws, and if that work has taught us anything it is that a law is only as good as the people who apply it. No amendment, however well drafted, will deliver what it promises while the Authority that has to apply it is led by someone who offered his partnership to a businessman whose interests he was supposed to regulate, and no Government can credibly propose such a reform while behaving as though none of this matters. Serious reform of the planning system begins with the people entrusted to run it. Until that is settled, whatever else is reformed will be built on sand.

The responsibility for what follows, Prime Minister and Minister, now rests with you. We therefore call upon the Government to bring Mr Buttigieg’s tenure to an end without further delay, whether by his resignation or, failing that, by his removal.

We have read what everyone else in the country has now read, and there is only one conclusion consistent with the standards public office demands. Mr Buttigieg cannot remain at the head of the Planning Authority, and a Government that leaves him there has made his conduct its own.

Yours faithfully,

Front Żgħażagħ għall-Ambjent (FŻA)

Kunsill Studenti Universitarji (KSU)

Studenti Demokristjani Maltin (SDM)

Students for Liberty

Young European Federalists (JEF) Malta

Society for Architecture and Civil Engineering Students (SACES)

Għaqda Studenti tat-Teoloġija (GħST)

Earth Systems Association (ESA)

History of Art and Fine Arts Students’ Association (HoASA)

Malta International Relations Students Association (MIRSA)

Classics and Archaeology Students’ Association (CASA)