GO plc is setting up a company to administer its properties and consider their use for investment purposes.

GO is today to be formally given title by the government over land and properties where its telephone exchanges and other installations are housed. In return it is handing back to the government a large plot of prime site land in Qawra which it had controversially retained during the privatisation process.

Parliament gave the green light for the property transfers yesterday. They have a value of €13.8m

Chief Financial Officer Edmond Brincat said  Malta Properties, as the new company has been called, will administer property worth some €50 million (including properties which GO already had title over.

He said the transaction with the government had solved many pending issues. For example, half of the land on which the GO telephone exchange and offices in Birkirkara had been built was owned by the government, and the rest was owned by the company. Now all the property had been transferred to the government.

Mr Brincat said that with the development of technology, some of the exchanges may get smaller, some offices may no longer be required, and the land would be freed up for other uses which the new SPV would consider on the basis of local plans and Mepa permits.