Two tumoli of public agricultural land on the outskirts of Siggiewi were sold to a building contractor to serve as an extension to his villa after the intervention of the Land Department, The Sunday Times of Malta has learnt.

Tania Micallef, a widowed farmer whose family has tilled the land for more than a century, said she got to know the land was sold by the government when Carmel Farrugia, the owner of the villa adjacent to her land, told her to move out. 

Documents seen by this newspaper show that on January 6, a contract for the transfer of land was signed between the Land Department and the Xerri family from Xagħra, Gozo, in exchange for two small parcels of land in Xagħra that were expropriated by the government in 1992. 

On the same day the new Gozitan owners signed a contract with MCF Ltd which acquired their newly acquired land for €31,000. The sole shareholder of MCF Ltd is Carmel Farrugia, the contractor who owns the villa adjacent to the land in Siggiewi.

According to the Disposal of Government Land Act, “the exchange (of land) may not be effected if the value of the government land to be given exceeds 30 per cent of the value of the expropriated land”. 

According to the contract signed between the Xerri family and the Land department, the land in Siggiewi had a value of €31,000 while the land in Gozo expropriated in 1992 now had a value of €29,474.  

In reply to questions by The Sunday Times of Malta the Government Property Division said that in 1992, the government expropriated land at Xagħra, Gozo for road widening. The owners had since then been requesting payment. On July 7, 2014 the owners wrote to the Government Property Division requesting the exchange of the expropriated property with a field at Siġġiewi. A valuation of both the expropriated land and the land requested was prepared. The value of the expropriated land including interest was established at €29,474, while the value of the field at Siġġiewi was established at €31,000.

“This exchange is within the parameters of Clause 13 (article 3) of Chapter 268.

“The owners of the expropriated land had to pay €1,526 being the difference between the value of the expropriated land and the land given in exchange." 

See video above. More in The Sunday Times of Malta.

Sign up to our free newsletters

Get the best updates straight to your inbox:
Please select at least one mailing list.

You can unsubscribe at any time by clicking the link in the footer of our emails. We use Mailchimp as our marketing platform. By subscribing, you acknowledge that your information will be transferred to Mailchimp for processing.