Third party issues were holding up the development of a yacht marina and cruise terminal at, according to Gozo Minister Justyne Caruana, who - however - gave no details of what the issues were.

She was asked in a parliament by MP Chris Said what had held up this project for five years.

“Is the project going to go ahead, and is the call for expressions of interest still underway or has it been suspended,” he asked.

“The ministry is following the process which needs to resolve issues between the bidder and third parties,” she replied.

The ministry had issued the call for expressions of interest in June 2013, and did not specify where the terminal/marina would be, although Ħondoq Ir-Rummien was excluded.

The project was then handed over to the Privatisation Unit which issued a request for proposals in October 2014, and when the call closed in October 2014, only one bid had been received.

The broad objective was to accommodate mainly small to medium sized cruise ships and to have a marina for at least 300 berths, including about 30 berths for up to 35m yachts (or larger).

Read: Gozo cruise liner terminal “at the opportune time”

“These negotiations are deemed to be of a complex nature and therefore are foreseen to take a substantial duration for them to be finalised,” the Privatisation Unit had said at the time.