No timeframe for Addolorata extension

Hundreds of applicants for graves are still in the dark over when they will be allocated a plot, since it is not clear when work on the promised extension of the Addolorata cemetery will take place.

Social Policy Minister John Dalli said he was expecting fresh proposals from architects and yesterday explained why the pre-electoral promise had been postponed.

"I am now responsible for this ministry and that extension would have been in my name. I could not, hand on heart, have allowed it to go ahead as planned," he said.

The Sunday Times recently reported that the government had halted the planned extension of the cemetery, which has been in the offing for about a decade.

An angry would-be grave-owner, Frank Muscat, had turned to the newspaper after being kept in the dark about the plans and was even called a pest by ministry staff after following up the issue.

Mr Muscat had made it his mission to find a suitable burial place for his terminally-ill wife. However, when she succumbed to cancer in mid-2007, he had to go to the trouble of finding an alternative burial place, despite having been promised the grave almost a year earlier.

Mr Muscat's grave would have formed part of a project announced in September 2006 to extend the Addolorata cemetery onto an adjacent dumping site. Under the plan, announced by former Health Minister Louis Deguara, 2,782 graves were to be developed on the site; 2,500 of these would be sold to the people who had been on the waiting lists for the longest time.

Mr Muscat's complaints eventually reached Mr Dalli who in a curt reply said: "Be informed that we have decided to stop the planned extension to the Addolorata cemetery to be able to develop a plan that does justice to this architectural jewel."

Replying to a parliamentary question from Labour MP Helena Dalli, the minister said last week that the government had not stopped the extension but postponed it to be able to revise the project as the current plans would have further ruined the cemetery, which was recognised for its unique artistic value.

However, when asked whether the public, or any of the 2,500 people who had been allocated a grave from the extension, were informed of the delay, Mr Dalli said that since the plan had not been stopped "the need was not felt to inform the media or the public".

In the months before the March 8 election (before Mr Dalli took over as Social Solidarity Minister) people allocated a grave were told the project would go ahead and were even asked to confirm in writing whether they were still interested.

Contacted yesterday, Mr Dalli reiterated that he did not feel the need to inform the people on the waiting lists. Nor would he set a timeline, saying he was expecting fresh proposals from architects.

However, he stressed that the original plans would have further ruined the Addolorata, like previous extensions "by Socialist governments had done".

"We either care for the environment and our cultural heritage or we don't," he said.

In a letter today (see page 17), Mr Muscat questions the lack of empathy shown for his case and demands a deadline.

"When my wife became terminally ill and her days were numbered, I reluctantly turned to my cousin for assistance. There is no doubt in my mind that all 2,500 people who qualified for an allocation of burial site have their own story to tell," Mr Muscat says in his letter.