Public land for sale - 70% discount
Partit Demokratiku demands the government to come clean on the sale of the ITS building. This is because the same land is valued at approximately €212 million in the Paceville masterplan which states that land comprising part of the ITS site and the Corinthia Marina Hotel was valued at €8,500 per square metre. The authors of the report indicated that the valuation prices for eventual expropriation were “provided by Malta Government”.
Partit Demokratiku asks the government to disclose information related to the negotiations whether they have come to an end or not. The people deserve to know if the site is being sold for a pittance given that it is public land. It is also of public interest to have the total figure of how much, we, the taxpayers, and people living on the Maltese Islands will be forking out, to pay for the relocation of ITS, the building of the infrastructure in the new project, and loss on the sale of ITS.
It is also important to keep in mind that the government will be paying for the relocation of ITS. In the past the Prime Minister has referred to himself as being a good salesman. This sale might make him a good salesman, for his pre-electoral deals, but a terrible statesman and not fit to be a prime minister, given that he is not even bothering to protect public interests and our heritage for the generations to come.
Partit Demokratiku asks the government if his pre-electoral deals have led the current government to become the salesman for subsidizing millionaires to become multimillionaires? Has he forgotten his ‘tagħna lkoll’ promises? And shelved them just like he was made to shelve the sham Paceville Master Plan which was not an objective and fair exercise but a public relations exercise of a supposedly ‘gvern li jisma’? And since the Paceville Master Plan has been shelved, on what basis will the development happen? Are the local plans going to be modified in a way to accommodate this development which is of private gain?
Partit Demokratiku condemns the irresponsibility and nonchalance with which the Labour government is disposing of the country’s silver. In the absence of a National Master Plan for highrise developments, adequate and holistic sustainability studies, social and environmental impact assessment, as well as proper valuation of the infrastructural and transport development required to back up such a project, which will ultimately be financed out of our people’s pockets, this decision taken on our behalf by Projects Malta which does not enjoy the nation’s trust, amounts to betrayal of our national interest, by those we entrusted with its protection.