Updated: Ta' Qali project should not be shelved - Muscat

(Adds government's reply)

The Ta' Qali crafts village project should be retaken in hand for the sake of employment, Labour Party leader Joseph Muscat said this morning.

Speaking during a visit to the village as part of the party's campaign for the EP elections, Dr Muscat said the Nationalist government had been promising this project for 17 years. It was first mentioned in 1992 and a development brief was approved in 2000. In 2004. the government said that the project would be a priority in 2005.

But in 2005, Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi said that the project would start in 2006. In 2006, it was passed on to the Roads Ministry and a task force was set up. In September that year, the government announced the Ta' Qali crafts village project would be well on its way before the general elections.

Several tenders were issued and the general elections were held with no sign of the project.

In January, tenants were told that all plans had been stopped and that the village was to be moved to Dock 1. For them, this came out of the blue, especially since most had a legal contract signed with the government.

Dr Muscat called on the government to complete the project saying that jobs were being threatened and tenants were being kept from developing their business. Investment in the crafts village was one way of increasing jobs especially with unemployment on the increase. The people, the Labour leader said, invested money in the area and they needed some form of security.

The government sadi in a reply that while it intended developing Dock 1 in a crafts' village, this did not mean that the enterprises currently at Ta'Qali would have to move or be abandoned.

In the past weeks, efforts were made for the village to be given a facelift to the benefit of entrepreneurs and meetings were being held continuously with officials from Malta Industrial Parts to decide their future in the village.