A recommendation to reconsider the price on which a tender concerning 83, Spinola Road and the associated foreshore had been partly based upon an official letter sent to the Lands Department.
The property had been transferred by the government in the last PN legislature.
It was acquired by 82 Limited through circumstances which a report by the National Audit Office described as “injudicious.”
The report is currently being discussed by the Public Accounts Committee.
The letter was sent by the legal representatives of EG Property Holdings Limited in 2003, six years prior to the conclusion of the court case ordering the eviction of the company from the foreshore and the demolition of all structures thereof.
The letter, which could not be found in the department file provided to the members of the Public Accounts Committee, was mentioned for the first time by Albert Mamo, who had made the recommendation in 2010 in his capacity as Commissioner for Lands.
In it, EG Property Holdings Limited had threatened to sue the government for damages because it had been led to develop the land through a mistaken recognition of title by the Joint Office, and because the land had been purchased and developed in good faith. Mr Mamo’s decision had also been based upon a recommendation by then Attorney General Anthony Borg Barthet that an amicable arrangement be found to avoid any threat of such damages.
A second letter, which had been sent to the Lands Department in 2010 following the upholding of the ruling in question by the Court of Appeal, claimed that significant “hardship” had been suffered because of extensive delays pending the resolution of the case.
Referring to the letter of acceptance sent by the Lands Department Tendering Committee, which awarded the property 83 Spinola Road, together with its foreshore, to EG Property Holdings Limited for the price of €950,000, the company also complained that this valuation was 500% higher than that arrived at by its architects.
The company had invested considerably in the land parcel in light of mistaken advice by the Lands Department confirming the validity of its claim to the land, raising its value.
Despite Mr Mamo’s recommendation, the tendering committee would never reconsider the price of €950,000, and was on record as having stated that the property should be sold for “not less than” that amount.
This arose from the contents of the case file, government MP Robert Abela said. He argued that, as a result, those wishing to bid on the land had had the goalposts moved on them.
Replying to Opposition MP Claudio Grech, Mr Mamo said that the valuation of the land made by the Lands Department’s architects, and which had been posted in the tender box, had not been published prior to the tender award, and there had actually been no price, minimum or otherwise, indicated to potential bidders.
Mr Mamo insisted throughout that he had been unaware of all proceedings related to the downward adjustment of the price by which the land parcel was to be sold following the completion of the tendering process.
He had been excluded not by the minister or his staff, but by then-director general John Sciberras. Following an independent valuation by three architects, the price was ultimately set at €525,000 post-fact, in an alteration to the tender conditions which, he said, did not normally occur. As was minuted in the file, he had signed the contract on behalf of the Lands Department with the approval of then Minister for Lands Tonio Fenech and Parliamentary Secretary Jason Azzopardi.
When asked by government MP Julia Farrugia Portelli whether the minister had been informed of the court ruling evicting the company from the land, he said that the director-general and the persons responsible for moving the process forward must have been aware of the ruling.