Gzira mayor Conrad Borg Manche’ has rejected the PN’s claims that its local councillors in the area were never aware and/or involved in the discussions to form the Manoel Island Foundation.

In fact, Borg Manche explained, Lawyer Claire Bonello, who sits on the Foundation’s Administrative Committee, had explained the guardianship agreement “word by word” to councillors in a recent council meeting.

Last Wednesday, MIDI, together with the Gzira Local Council, signed a Guardianship Deed which established a nonprofit foundation to ensure that Manoel Island’s heritage sites, foreshore, and significant green park spaces are restored and preserved for the whole community. The Administrative Committee of ‘The Manoel Island Foundation’ consists of four members, Gzira Mayor himself, who will act as the Chairman of the foundation, Lawyer Claire Bonello, Deputy Gzira Mayor Ralph Mangion (PL) and MIDI CEO Mark Portelli. Through the deed, MIDI has bound itself to commitments ensuring public access to the Manoel Island Public Park, the Foreshore, Swimming Zones, Fort Manoel, as well as the building heights of the residential units that will be developed on the island.

The natural area will be landscaped to deliver an 80,000 square metres public park, while the fort will be designed to become a central attraction that will house galleries, museums, shops, restaurants and a parade ground for open-air events, with the proposed casino no longer taking place. The Lazaretto will be restored to become a 5-star hotel with serviced apartments.

The Malta Independent has asked the PN to ascertain it’s position on the set-up of the foundation. In their reply the PN said, “In principle, the Nationalist Party and its Local Councillors in Gżira are in favour of the establishment of the Foundation,” a PN spokesperson explained, “in fact, the Nationalist Party wanted to be one of the Foundation’s Administrators to have an active role in carrying out this task.”

“However, the PN Councillors were never aware and/or involved in any of the discussions and meetings that were held and that led to the formation of the Guardianship Agreement and the Statute that regulates the Foundation of Manoel Island.”

PN said that, “in actual fact, although the PN Councillors attempted to ask questions on the Foundation, the answers given were still unclear on certain issues, particularly representation on the administrative committee, and the PN’s motion to be one of the Foundation’s Administrators was voted against.”

Speaking to the newsroom, Borg Manche explained that the foundation is built upon the work done by the ‘Friends of Manoel Island’ initiative, insisting that “everyone, including the public, was aware of our ideas, goals and what we set out to achieve” and that any related documents have always been readily and publicly available.

The change to a foundation, he said, was necessary to give the movement more legitimacy, while also safeguarding the interests set out in the agreement regardless of which party was in government or had control over the local council.

“Ultimately the sole objective of this initiative is to guard the area for the community,” he said. He conceded that the councillors were not involved in the negotiations, but insisted that he would have accepted any involvement, should there have been any initiative from their end.

He also pointed to the fact that PN councillors such as Graziella Attard Previ had even opposed the council’s initial intervention in 2016.

“Until then, no one intervened for 16 years even though MIDI were breaching the concession by blocking all access to the foreshore,” he said.

In September 2016, activists from the Kamp Emergenza Ambjent, joined by Borg Manche, cut through a fence and broke open a gate that was blocking public access to the foreshore at Manoel Island.

The local council had also initiated legal proceedings against the MIDI consortium, saying that it was breaching its contract terms by barring public access to the foreshore.