Shadow environment minister Marthese Portelli described the sale of the ITS site to a company of the Seabank Group as “one of the biggest scandals of the Labour government”.
Dr Portelli told Parliament on Tuesday the contract signed by the government was “a big deception” and showed how it was selling prime public property for peanuts to give an advantage to a particular investor over all the others.
Despite the fact that the Prime Minister boasted that the government had sold the 24,000 square metres of prime land for €60 million, the contract indicated that was “a lie”, she continued. She said the developer would only be paying €15 million for the land staggered over a number of years.
“The contract in black and white states that €5 million were paid on the signing of the contract while the rest (€10 million) will be paid in seven yearly instalments interest free,” Dr Portelli said.
She said the rest of the sum mentioned by the Prime Minister would potentially be forked out in taxes by those who eventually bought apartments to be built on the site.
Such payment was not even compulsory on the part of future buyers. Dubbing the Prime Minister as “pro-certain businesses”, the shadow minister compared the ITS deal to another that was concluded in the past, although on smaller and less prestigious sites. She recalled that, 11 years ago, the owners of Fort Cambridge, in Tignè had paid €55 million on a contract for a much smaller plot of land.
Last year, Mimcol sold, through a tender process, 400 square metres of property in Paceville – not a seafront area- for €3.5 million. She said this showed that Joseph Muscat was not treating all investors the same but was selective when deciding who should get public assets.
Dr Portelli said that the ITS deal was also scandalous from a planning point of view. While the government had already issued a policy in which no tall buildings were to be allowed in Pembroke, it had now signed a deal allowing the ITS developers to build a tower there.
She asked whether the government would now change the policy to continue accommodating the Seabank Group.
Questions were also raised on whether the government was trying to avoid scrutiny because, normally, the transfer of public land was only made following a resolution in Parliament. However, in this case, the government was arguing that there was no need because the deal was made through a tender.
After issuing a request for proposals in November 2015, it was only the Seabank Group that had submitted an offer for the development of the prime site.