Law to be changed to facilitate backdated payments

There is still no timeline for paying the compensation owed to all the former property owners of expropriated land, because of the massive backlog of paperwork dating back decades.

However, a government spokesman yesterday said they were looking into making a set of changes in the law that would facilitate backdated payments to land owners over a fixed number of years.

For the past 10 years, the government has slowly been repaying former owners for land expropriated from them over many years.

Land Parliamentary Secretary Jason Azzopardi admitted however that he could not give any concrete figures on how many were still awaiting compensation or how many plots of land have not yet been paid for, because some of the cases date back to over 40 years ago and involve a lot of paperwork.

The slow payment system is a great source of frustration for owners who have been waiting years for compensation.

“I know that people get angry and frustrated and I understand their anger. Only recently, I received a request from an old man who wanted the money he is due before he dies – to give it to his children,” Dr Azzopardi said.

The government has slowly been paying its dues. Last year’s budget allocated €5 million towards compensation for land expropriation.

However, recent figures laid in Parliament revealed that up till June, the department still owed around €47 million for expropriated land. And this figure does not include any increase in the value of the various plots of land and some of the owners who still have to be identified.

Between 2001 and 2008 the government paid out some €73 million for land expropriation – almost €65 million of it up to 2007 and €5,841,521 in 2008.

But this week, Deputy Prime Minister Tonio Borg pointed out that these figures do not include the pending compensation amounting to tens of millions of euros for land taken without a President’s order under Labour administrations.

In fact, Dr Azzopardi said most of the legal problems the government faced were due to the illegal expropriation that took place in the early 1980s.

At that time it was government practice to literally bulldoze into a person’s private land without the Presidential declaration to legalise the expropriation, Dr Azzopardi said.

But in 1993 the government had bound its departments to pay compensation to owners according to valuations made by the Land Department.

“If a government department wants a plot of land, then it has to deposit a sum equivalent to the land’s value,” he said. Before this law was passed, the government was expropriating land without checking if there were available funds.

This law brought about a form of self-control to the situation.

Parliament is now discussing a set of amendments that will give land owners the right to go to court and question government expropriation of land for public interest.

Owners will have 21 days to file their case before the Land Arbitration Board. The government would still be able to go ahead with the works while the case is pending but if the board finds against the authorities, then the owner can claim compensation, Dr Azzopardi said.

“This will make the whole process more transparent and more accountable.”