There has been a drastic drop in direct enforcement action by the Land Department since the Labour Party was returned to government, recent statistics show.

More enforcement action used to be carried out in a month by the department than it is now doing in an entire year. Figures tabled in Parliament show the department only conducted 25 enforcement actions throughout last year.

This year, the department intervened to remove abuse on government land only six times between January and May.

In contrast, the same department would conduct an average of 170 enforcement actions per year between 2008 and 2012 (see table on page 4).

Speaking to Times of Malta, a spokesman for the Office of the Prime Minister said direct action was used as a last resort, but the department’s enforcement officers were working on a daily basis despite “the very limited human and financial resources of the department”.

The department has only five enforcement officers to cope with infringements on government land across the country.

They do site inspections and deliver letters to tenants or squatters instructing them to abide by the conditions of the lease or encroachment. They also have to deal with court duties and issues related to utilities meters, the OPM said.

It is only when the infringement persists that an eviction order is issued since the focus is on voluntary compliance.

“The current direction of the depart­­­-ment is to try to achieve as much as possible [through] voluntary compliance as this would save a lot in terms of human and financial resources,” the OPM said.

Even in cases where an eviction order is issued, enforcement action may still be paralysed.

“The department is at times faced by warrants of prohibitory injunction filed by the infringer, and also lengthy court procedures,” the OPM added. It did not elaborate on why the government was not strengthening a department unable to cope with its duties.

Jason Azzopardi, former land minister, said the figures showed the government was taking the path of least resistance when its duty was to uphold the law.

He said this was reflected in the “abysmally low” number of enforcement actions compared to his time at the helm of the same department. He said that, although he would be the first to say more could have been done in his time, the numbers proved government talk of enforcement was just hot air.

“Its record in taking action against those who abuse of public land pales into insignificance when you compare it with the unprecedented enforcement actions carried out during the last legislature,” Dr Azzopardi said.

He raised the fact that abuse of public land led to victims – the law-abiding, licence-paying, permit holder or neighbour affected by the infringement.

In some situations this could create unfair competition between businesses, Dr Azzopardi said.

“Labour should hang its head in shame when we now know that the enforcement action carried out by lands [department] in this last year of an ‘energetic government’ is equal to the number of actions we used to carry out in almost a month,” he added.

Year Inspections Removals
2008 n/a 97
2009 n/a 172
2010 777 269
2011 993 175
2012 1,018 140
2013 (Mar-Dec) n/a 25
2014 (Jan-May) n/a 6

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