The Joint Office, which was set up to administer these properties, was meant function only for 10 years, but by the looks of it, will have to be around for many more years until the whole transfer is certified and ascertained.

The House of Representatives Public Accounts Committee (PAC) last Wednesday listened dumbfounded as the whole extent of the task to comply with the 1992 agreement unfolded and as the magnitude of what is still to be done was uncovered.

The background to the whole discussion was a recent ongoing case where land which purchasers believed to belong to one owner, turned out, it is alleged, to be land which was supposed to be transfered to government by the Chuch in the 1992 deal.

The PAC, however, avoided discussing this issue once it was told the case was sub judice and discussion could prejudice the government’s case.

Speaking to the PAC, Joseph Scriha, director at the Joint Office, said that 8,519 registrations were carried out in the past years: 773 in 2001, 944 in 2002, and 1,517 last year.

As for corrections of the original claims, Mr Scriha added, 1,383 were carried out in 2002 and 3,032 in 2003.

The Church, he added, has produced property forms for only 23,000 of the 35,000 properties it handed over.

John Sciberras, Director General of the Lands Department, explained the complex procedure, from the listing of the property to its final registration. This entails checking to ensure that all the details of the property tally, physically checking on site to ensure the dimensions and location given are the right ones, registering any changes which may be necessary, and finally registering the site. Such laborious checking is absolutely required, Mr Sciberras added, when the land in question is agricultural land, while rather less checking is needed with regard to urban property.

Mr Sciberras and the other Joint Office officials all spoke of having far too few human resources at their disposal to do such highly technical work

Many times, he said, all that identifies land as formerly belonging to the church would be a 150-year old sketch. One has to know how to interpret such sketches and to identify it as real land when on site.

At present, he added, the Joint Office has just 22 employees. Any new additions will need to be trained and properly supervised, as otherwise mistakes can be made. In some areas of the process, Mr Scriha continued, there is only one person who can do the work. Yet so far the Joint Office has completed (‘closed’) 25 Church entities. Holding up a somewhat thick folder, he said this contained all property relating to one entity.

PAC chairman Charles Mangion asked about the bonds handed over to the Church in return for the land. This carried a seven per cent interest and could have been cashed in February last year.

Peter Deguara, Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Justice, said this fund is handled by the Ministry of Finance.

Dr Mangion persisted: Does this fund have Lm28 million to offset the bonds? His information, he added, was that the fund was nowhere near this sum.

Mr Sciberras said the lack of trained manpower does not affect just the Joint Office. The Lands Department and the Government Property Division have 30 and 40 employees respectively: there is a lack of proper human resources in all three sections. Even farming out does not help much, he added, for there is a general lack of technical and legal people.

Another problem is the fact that the two sections are housed in different locations: the Joint Office is in Sa Maison while the Lands Department is at the Auberge de Baviere (but will move in due time). This means there have to be two separate registries, two separate cash offices, and so on.

So far, despite all the difficulties, all government property has been registered and is computerised. Work is now ongoing with regards to government property in Gozo. When this is completed, around the end of this year, Joint Office property will start to be computerised, and hence people occupying Joint Office property will be able to start paying their rent to the local councils like people occupying government property do at present.

However, he added, there are only seven people who can carry out this computerisation process.