Armier boathouse owners expect Nationalist Party leader Simon Busuttil to honour agreements made by his predecessors, one of them on the eve of the 2008 general election.
“We have documented agreements with previous PN administrations. Is Simon Busuttil backtracking? We expect him to honour these commitments,” a spokes-man for Armier Developments Limited, Tarcisio Barbara, told the Times of Malta.
According to Mr Barbara, one agreement was for the building of new beach rooms to replace old boathouses, giving existing owners the right of first refusal.
During a recent conference organised by the Church Environment Commission, Dr Busuttil offered the government his party’s “complete and unconditional support” to tackle the long-standing issue surrounding the illegal boathouse village on the sea’s edge in Armier.
Dr Busuttil admitted that part of the blame for the continuous illegalities being committed by boathouse owners lay with his own party.
We should have tackled this before and not let it grow
“I have to say mea culpa on behalf of my party, as we should have tackled this before and not let it grow. However, this does not mean that we should do nothing more about it. It’s wrong that now the Prime Minister wants to regularise their electricity supply,” Dr Busuttil told the conference.
Putting his proposal on the table, Dr Busuttil turned to Prime Minister Joseph Muscat sitting next to him and said: “As leader of the PN, I will give you all the necessary support so that the government will tackle the illegal boathouses once and for all... We will not oppose. We will instead support all the actions you deem fit, so long as you tackle the illegalities.”
But Mr Barbara said he was surprised by Dr Busuttil’s statement, asking whether this meant he was backtracking on what his predecessors had promised the boathouse owners.
He said they had documented agreements with former PN deputy leader Tonio Borg, at the time responsible for public land, and another with former PN leader Lawrence Gonzi prior to the 2008 general election. He explained that according to these agreements, Armier Developments Limited would handle a project for the building of beach rooms to replace the old boathouses.
A number of rooms would be offered to new users but existing boathouse users would be given the right of first refusal.
The project would feature some 1,000 rooms for use during the summer only.
But despite planning applications stalled at the Malta Environment and Planning Authority since 2004, nothing was ever done, he said, because the agreements were never followed up on.
“We met to discuss what Dr Busuttil said because he was very vague, and we would like to know which boathouses he was referring to. The PN always accepted those boathouses prior to 1992. He admitted that the PN was to blame, but to blame for what? There are boathouses that have been there for 40 and 50 years,” he said.
“Just because the PN is in opposition now, are they going to backtrack on the agreement? Let us not forget that the last agreement was made just before the 2008 election, which the PN won by a slim 1,400-vote majority.
“A year before the election, more than 8,200 people had signed a petition on the boathouses and Dr Gonzi had written a letter saying that boathouses built before 1992 would remain there.
“He eventually won by a slim majority. By the same argument, does that mean the 2008 election was stolen?” he said.
Mr Barbara said when contacted that the committee had met to discuss the matter but he refused to say what the outcome of the meeting was.
“We have decided not to give comments to the media,” he said when asked whether they would be asking for a meeting with Dr Busuttil.
Questions sent to Dr Muscat and Dr Busuttil on the subject remained unanswered at the time of publishing.