Marsa land leased for 99 years to Enemalta plc

A series of public deeds on the transfer of public lands to Enemalta is the new bone of contention between the Labour government and the Nationalist Opposition, with the PN accusing the government of having failed to publicise the signing of agreements on the transfer of public land.

The PN yesterday released a series of public deeds – registered with the government notary in August 2014 – on the transfer of public lands belonging to the former Enemalta corporation, which was incorporated as a public limited company (plc) owing to a 33% shareholding acquisition by Shanghai Electric Power.

The PN yesterday claimed that the agreements stayed ‘unpublished’ because of the government’s insistence not to present the contracts
in parliament - MaltaToday also requested three of these agreements, which despite being public deeds were not released immediately by the Government Property Department and then only after two weeks with the intervention of the parliamentary secretariat for lands.

EXPLAINER How 45-year lease was turned into 99-year emphyteusis and Enemalta solar roof space to be leased at 50c per square metre

The Opposition’s protestations come late in the day, since the legal notices incorporating Enemalta into a plc and also exempting the company from government rules on the transfer of its lands, were passed in the House of Representatives with little opposition from the Nationalist bench.

Details of three of the 11 agreements were already obtained by MaltaToday last week and published on Sunday, revealing that Enemalta plc will be leasing 310,000 square metres of roof space for solar panels at 50c per square metre.

Energy minister Konrad Mizzi yesterday insisted that the deeds referred to by the Opposition were “public deeds which have been available to the general public ever since.”

The agreements are of particular note because they were hammered out days before the government incorporated Enemalta as a public limited company, that set the scene for the eventual 33% acquisition by SEP.

The list of agreements include the site of the Marsa power station acquired by the Lands Department from special purpose vehicle Vault Finance; the grant of 310,000 square metres of public land for the installation of PV panels to Enemalta plc; three contracts for the lease of land in Marsa, Marsaxlokk and Ghaxaq for a total of 190 years altogether; the sale of land at Has Saptan, Ghaxaq and the Marsaxlokk terminal from Petromed Company to Enemed Company; and the lease agreement between Enemalta and subsidiary D3 Power Generation Limited, and the rental contract to ElectroGas for the construction of an LNG power plant.

The land occupied by the former Marsa power station, now in the process of being dismantled, will be used for commercial development, and has now been leased to Enemalta plc for 99 years for €65,000 a year.

Additionally Enemalta plc has been freed from customary rules on the disposal of public land, so that it can sub-lease the land to third parties without the need for public tender or a parliamentary resolution.

Indeed, Labour had already pledged a “recreational and commercial space” instead of the decommissioned Marsa power station in its 2013 electoral manifesto.

The deed for the Marsa lease was signed just days before the legal notice that created Enemalta plc.

But the Opposition has questioned why Enemalta was being exempted from the Disposal of Government Land Act, with shadow justice minister Jason Azzopardi arguing that the hushed conclusion of the contracts and the publication of the legal notice raised questions on the government’s actions.

“It should not have been the Opposition’s role to publish these documents. Even more so legal notice Legal Notice 302 specifically titled ‘removal of restrictive conditions order’. It is evident that the government is hiding, but the question is in whose interests?” Azzopardi asked.

But Konrad Mizzi said that these deeds were “all public by their own nature and can be accessible by anyone from the Lands Registry. Most of these deeds relate to properties which were removed from Enemalta and assigned to Enemed.”

Enemed Fuels is the government company handling fuel distribution, previously in the hands of Enemalta Corporation. The entity was carved out to separate the profit-making petroleum division from Enemalta, which remained fully owned by the State.

“The transfer was made to ensure that the assets relating to the petroleum division do not remain within Enemalta plc. This was also announced in parliament,” Mizzi said.

As for the land, these lucrative assets were passed on to the newly-incorporated Enemalta plc.

The Marsa land had already been leased for 45 years to Vault Finance in 2012, a special purpose vehicle created to refinance Enemalta Corporation. The land has now been leased for 99 years to Enemalta plc.

Most importantly, Mizzi said that the incorporation of Enemalta plc was already discussed in parliament both in plenary and at committee stages. “Even if the deal with SEP [in December 2014] hadn’t materialised, we still would have turned Enemalta into a commercial company. We would have done it anyway and it was part of its changing process.”

Asked why the Opposition had not contested the Legal Notice at an earlier stage, Jason Azzopardi said the Opposition had used the parliamentary debate on energy “to raise arguments on transparency”.

The MP said the Lands Department had been under a lot of pressure in August to finish the contracts in less than 24 hours, “staying up until 4am”.

He said the government was hiding its tracks and covering its back. 

“Why was all that rush necessary in August? Perhaps pressure was made by investors?” Azzopardi asked.

The PN argued that the transfer of land to Enemalta had ensured that the company’s asset base was enriched before the deal with Shanghai Electric Power was concluded. Raising questions on the grant of 310,000 square metres of public land, the PN suggested that the government may already be eyeing an investment.

Konrad Mizzi however said that, while Enemalta plc would be investing in the renewable energy sector, “the plan is to leave the bigger market to the investors. Enemalta’s pilot project will be a small one while the rest will be undertaken by the private sector.”