A Nationalist government would have taken back Żonqor without compensation - Bernard Grech

Nationalist Party leader Bernard Grech insisted that his party would have taken back land at Żonqor Point from the American University of Malta (AUM) without offering compensation to Sadeen Group. 

Speaking on the party media's television station on Sunday, Grech stood by previous political pledges and asserted that the land in Marsaskala should have never been handed to the Jordanian developers. 

"A Nationalist government would take back the land from Jordanian hands without compensation," Grech stated.

AUM were granted a 99-year lease on land in Bormla and Żonqor Point in Marsaskala. But a fresh agreement sees government proposing granting AUM land at Smart City to develop a university campus instead of the land at Żonqor.

The agreement was discussed in parliament's National Audit Office Accounts Committee this week.

During the committee meeting, Opposition spokesperson Darren Carabott similarly insisted that government should take back the land in Marsaskala without offering AUM an alternative site at Smart City.

Carabott and fellow Opposition MP Rebekah Cilia voted against two resolutions presented by Lands Minister Silvio Schembri with the land-swap proposal.

The fact that the resolutions did not get unanimous backing means that they will now have to be discussed in the plenary.

Controversy has long engulfed the concession in Żonqor, which incorporated the former national pool complex and a tract of land outside the development boundaries.

Sadeen completed restoration works on part of the site in Bormla and the first student intake was September 2017. An AUM application to develop and restore the rest of the Bormla site, known as the Knights’ Building, was refused and is still pending appeal.

The company also filed an application for the development of the Żonqor campus but pressure had been building to not move forward with that project until the Bormla campus was operating at full capacity.