Planning Authority CEO Johann Buttigieg has resigned from the position of director of his planning consultancy business, JB3M, after concerns about conflict of interest were raised in the public sphere over recent months.
The PA CEO remains the sole shareholder of the consultancy firm, under his legal name “John Buttigieg”.
He had set up the firm back in 2022, when he was not in Government, and it was widely reported that the firm won a contract from the Water Services Corporation for €1.2 million weeks before he returned as head of the authority.
Mr Buttigieg told Times of Malta that the company was set up before he returned to the PA and that his interest in it had been declared when appointed. He told the Times that the company operates independently of the PA, and that the three-year Water Services Corporation contract was awarded through a public procurement process. He said that JB3M has not provided services to any client aside from the Water Services Corporation.
Mr Buttigieg has been facing pressure to resign by the Nationalist Party and by NGOs over his consultancy, and over chats which were published with Yorgen Fenech back in 2019. But Mr Buttigieg had said that no business transaction or commercial arrangement ever arose from, or was discussed, in connection with the exchanges.
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