A Gozitan family is insisting that Land Department officials helped them strike a deal to sell government land in Siggiewi to a third party earlier this year.

The family was given the land in Siggiewi as compensation after the government expropriated its land in Xaghra in 1992. On the same day of acquiring the government land, the family entered into a separate contract with Carmelo Farrugia, selling  it for €31,000. Mr Farrugia lives in a villa next door.

“We did not want land in Siġġiewi because we had no use for it. However, officials from the Land Department advised us that by selling it to a third party we could get our compensation,” Victoria Xerri told the Times of Malta. “This was the only way we could get our much-awaited compensation and that is what we did.”

When contacted, Mr Farrugia said he never contacted the Land Department about the next door field because he did not even know it belonged to the government. He said it was Mario Xerri, Victoria’s husband, who went to him offering him the public land a day before he signed the contract.

The department distanced itself from other deals the Gozitan family made after acquiring the land from the government. It insisted that such land exchanges had taken place for decades.

See also http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20150830/local/farmer-questions-sinister-land-deal.582438