The Planning Authority has confirmed that Turkish workers were being housed at an Mqabba quarry, but clarified that they were living in premises permitted for use as offices, and not in a tent.
Last week, The Times of Malta reported that many Turkish workers were being housed at the Mqabba quarry, where a ‘makeshift residential complex’ was being set up.
The Planning Authority had issued a statement, saying that it had inspected the quarry and found “no evidence that any persons were living there at any time.”
“A tent was pitched illegally in the quarry and thus an enforcement notice was issued and the structure will be removed,” the PA had said, adding that “the owners of the quarry stated that the tent was intended to be used as office premises and not for residential purposes.”
On Saturday, The Malta Independent reported that the actual enforcement notice contradicted the PA statement. The enforcement notice – EC39/19 – stated that the cause of infringement was the “change of use from approved offices to residential unit, change of use of part of the quarry to an open storage yard not related to the quarrying operations, placing of containers and erection of a tented structure on top of the containers without permit.”
One of the contraveners in the “interested parties” section of the enforcement notice also includes “the occupiers.”
In a right of reply sent to this newspaper, the PA further clarified that there was no evidence of people sleeping in tents or containers but old premises, approved in 2004 for office use, were being used for residential purposes. No reference to these offices had been made in the original PA statement, sent on 20 February.
This is the full statement sent by the PA: “The Planning Authority makes reference to a newspaper article published on Saturday 23rd February 2019, in the Malta Independent, whereby it reported that last Wednesdays statement issued by the PA contradicts the enforcement notice it issued on the quarry site.
The Authority insists that from the inspection carried out on Wednesday 20th February there was no evidence that the tent and containers were being used for residential purposes.
From further verifications on site it resulted that old premises, approved in 2004 for office use were being used for residential purposes. As a result, the enforcement directorate included this illegality as part of the enforcement notice. The change of use was immediately stopped on the serving of the enforcement notice.
Therefore the statement issued last Wednesday by the Planning Authority was correct as the tent and containers to which the Times of Malta made reference to were not being used for residential purposes.”
On Sunday, Prime Minister Joseph Muscat said that only 500 Turkish workers were being brought to Malta by a private contractor, and not 2,500, as stated in a media report. He also said that only 60 of these workers had arrived in Malta by that point, and that they were still in the process of acquiring their residence permits.