"Not true government had not reached agreement with boathouse owners"

Armier Developments Ltd, a company set up recently by Armier boathouse owners, insisted in a statement on Friday that the company was set up to enable Government to honour its pledge to hand over land at Armier to be developed into beachrooms.

It was untrue that the government had not reached any form of agreement with the boathouse owners, the statement said.

The company was reacting to a Home Affairs and Environment Ministry statement last week saying that there was no verbal or written agreement with the occupants of land at Armier or the company they had set up.

The ministry said that the government's original stand - that a company should be set up to see to the development of beachrooms at Armier - had not changed.

However, the fact that the land occupiers had set up a company did not mean that the government would be giving any advantage to the company.

The ministry said that the government's stand was in accordance with the principles announced by the government over the matter.

These included the building of a village with beachrooms that would be managed by a company.

Some time after the project is launched, anyone wanting to hire a beachroom would be able to do so - those who had been occupying land at Armier in 1992 and others who had not would have the same opportunity to hire the beachrooms, the ministry said.

But in its statement, Armier Developments Ltd said that the company knew its origins to a request made by the Home Affairs and Environment Minister Tonio Borg and Parliamentary Secretary George Pullicino to representatives of boathouse and caravan owners in the northwest of Malta during various meetings with them, particularly that of June 18 this year.

The company said that these facts are strengthened by four affidavits filed by four boathouse owners' representatives who were present during the meetings with the government.

The company said that in the present circumstances, it would be calling an extraordinary general meeting to clarify the situation and to give adequate directives.

The central committee of associations of caravan and boathouse owners in the north of Malta last month said that it had set up a company called Armier Developments Ltd to oversee the government's scheme to demolish illegal boathouses and replace them with more organised beach rooms.

Committee and company chairman Tarcisio Barbara had said that the company had been set up to build new beach rooms and rehabilitate the area.

Mr Barbara said that last June the government proposed that the committee set up a company which would oversee the project, including the building of the new rooms. In the meantime, it would grant a lease to the company for the land.

The government, Mr Barbara had said, requested the company to build 1,575 beach rooms, of which 300 would be for the public.