I have been reading about the saga of the premises at Old Mint Street, Valletta. I have worked there and restored the building in the 1990s. The book restoration laboratory of the National Library was there until 1999, when I then went to work at Bighi.

Underneath me on the ground floor there were the offices the Malta Council for Science and Technology before they also moved to Bighi. So the building was not used for educational purposes for the best part of 25 years.

But before that time I had also worked on the restoration of the building at 90, West Street, which is government property. It is a beautiful building and at the back of it there is the garden of the Archbishop’s Palace.

However it is now in a pitiful state, literally close to collapse.

My question is, why is the government keen on buying a building but then leaves its own property to fall apart?

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