Works on the extension of the Addolorata Cemetery have not yet started and buyers who three years ago placed a €2,500 deposit on a new grave are questioning whether the project will materialise in their lifetime.
Though a government spokeswoman reassured this newspaper that all legal commitments would be honoured, it is not clear when the project will be completed.
On March 18, 2013, applicants had been invited by the government to sign a three-year promise of sale agreement to acquire one of the much sought after 3,000 new graves at Malta’s largest cemetery. The selected applicants had been requested to make a 50 per cent deposit on the price (€5,000) at the Environmental Health Directorate.
From information tabled in a parliamentary question in October 2012, it emerged that for every grave up for grabs there were almost two applicants, with a waiting list of 5,000, stretching back 20 years.
With the agreement set to expire in a few months’ time, applicants contacted by this newspaper complained they had been left completely in the dark over their ‘investment’.
“It would be of great interest if the Health Minister or at least the Public Health Superintendent is kind enough to let the public know when such work is due to start and more importantly, when it is likely to be completed,” Anthony Buttigieg from Gżira told The Sunday Times of Malta.
“As the contract will expire in just a few more months, one wonders whether the government ever had the intention of building such graves or if the intention was simply to borrow some money interest free,” he added.
Contacted by this newspaper, a spokeswoman for the Parliamentary Secretariat for Health said all existing contracts would be honoured, while others which may expire in due course would be renewed.
However, no date was given for the completion or even the start of the works.
While noting that the project had been in the offing for 13 years, the spokeswoman blamed the delays on successive PN administrations.
Plans to extend the cemetery had been rolled out in 2002, but the development permit was only issued four your years later, she said. “A contract to excavate the site was awarded in February 2008 to AG JV but the works were halted half-way through in December 2010, when €1.5 million had already been spent on the project,” the spokeswoman said.
She also pointed out that further complications cropped up a year later when it transpired that the development permit had expired.
“Despite being fully aware of the situation, the previous administration had forged ahead with the signing of a number of contracts before the 2013 general election,” the parliamentary secretariat said.
The spokeswoman added that a year after the change in government, in February 2014, the Labour administration reapplied for a development permit.
She said that apart from these new graves there would also be a crematorium and stressed that the government would be seeking the participation of the private sector in this project.