The Nationalist Party this afternoon called on the prime minister to shoulder political responsibility over the ‘scandalous’ way how a man made hefty profit when part of a property was expropriated weeks after it was bought.
PN spokesman for justice, Jason Azzopardi said the prime minister, who is directly responsible for the Lands Department ‘must have known’ what was going on.
The payments were made between January and April, he said. That coincided with the time when the spotlight was on the Land Department because of the damning Auditor General report on the Cafe’ Premier deal.
Dr Azzopardi told a press conference that it was not normal that the government expropriated property in bits and pieces.
He asked: Why was this latest expropriation ultra fast? Why did the government only expropriate half of the property and why did it divide that into two quarters?
Why did the government not go to the original owners rather than wait for a person close to the Labour Party, Mark Gaffarana, to buy part of the property and then make a substantial profit (€685,000) from the expropriation?
The case was revealed by The Sunday Times of Malta yesterday. The Prime Minister and Parliamentary Secretary Michael Falzon this morning denied political involvement and said regular procedures were followed.