The revision of the boundaries of the development zones takes into consideration the hundreds of owners of small plots who have for years been waiting to be able to build on the land, Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi said yesterday.

“There are hundreds of small plot owners who have been waiting for many years to be able to develop their land. Could we, as government, simply ignore them? We had to take the socio-economic impact into consideration, something that critics of the government’s plans have ignored during this debate,” said Dr Gonzi.

“The price of property is a major concern for many young people, who simply cannot afford to pay huge sums for a home. By extending the development zones we are freeing up land to give an opportunity to young people to buy land and build their own property,” he added.

The prime minister insisted time and again that the government could not refuse to listen to those whose land could not be developed because it fell outside the development zone.

Speaking during a media briefing at Castille yesterday, Dr Gonzi welcomed the healthy debate on the proposed revisions of the development zone boundaries. However, he insisted that the process was still at the beginning and “any decision that will be taken from now on will still have to be approved by parliament”.

Dr Gonzi said the process to revise the boundaries had not begun last month but back in 1993, when the local plans were discussed. He said the current exercise was a continuation of that process aimed at giving final approval or otherwise to what had been decided then.

“Should we, therefore, ignore all the work that was carried out in 1993? Was it a waste of time? Now is the time for us to say whether or not we agree with what was proposed over the years and conclude the exercise,” he said.

The Prime Minister said he was surprised that very few people had criticised the criteria that would be applied to allow land to be included in the revised development zones.

Replying to criticism of the proposed boundaries, however, Dr Gonzi said that 90 per cent of applications for land to be included in the revision boundaries had been left out.

Giving more statistics, he said that 18.5 per cent of the land included in the revised zones is already built on. “Much of Mtarfa was built outside the development zone… should we leave it out? There are sites that were built with all the necessary permits. Should these properties be left out?”

Dr Gonzi said that 25 per cent of all land in the proposed zones will be available for roads and open spaces, while 500,000 square metres of land had already been proposed in the local plans.

He said that 74,000 square metres of land belonged to the government and this will used in line with the government’s social housing policy or else to generate funds that will go towards compensating those whose land had been taken away from them in the past.

Public holidays

With regard to the debate on public holidays, Dr Gonzi said he had replied to a letter sent to him by the secretary-general of the General Workers’ Union, Tony Zarb, in which the government is asked to accept the decision reached by the International Labour Organisation (ILO).

Dr Gonzi said the ILO had not criticised the government’s decision not to add a day of leave when public holidays fall on a weekend, but had found a problem with a clause in the 1975 law.

“The message I am getting from the GWU is that they want to remove public holidays. The GWU are pushing us into a situation to reduce public holidays. Today, workers have not been affected financially; if we reduce the number of public holidays, we would be gaining an extra two days or more. However, workers would lose what they are usually paid when they go to work. If the GWU is pushing the government in that direction, then it is only fair that the union’s members are made aware of what their union is suggesting,” said Dr Gonzi.

Economy and finance

Dr Gonzi said that the latest economic figures for the first four months of 2006 were extremely positive and confirmed that government efforts to reduce the deficit and boost economic growth had been effective.

According to statistics distributed to the media, Q1 growth in real terms was 3.1 per cent, while exports also increased in the first quarter of 2006 by 14.4 per cent.

Replying to a question with regard to the EU Commission’s estimate that the deficit next year will be above the three per cent of GDP benchmark, Dr Gonzi said the EU had failed to take into consideration a number of “one-off” revenue streams that the government expected in the coming months. At the same time, he added, the EU Commission’s estimate had not taken into consideration “one-off” expenditure, for instance on the new hospital, that will come to an end.

He said that the government was confident it would succeed in reaching the Maastricht criteria, although he did admit that inflation was a concern.

Price of medicines

Asked by The Malta Independent whether the government had taken a decision on how to tackle the problem of the rising cost of medicines, Dr Gonzi confirmed that meetings had taken place between the government and the Chamber of Commerce and Enterprise. He would not give any more details except to say that “we hope to find a solution within the coming weeks”.

Code of ethics

Replying to questions in relation to allegations that Parliamentary Secretary Tony Abela had breached the Code of Ethics, Dr Gonzi said nothing of the sort had happened and the letter distributed by Opposition leader Alfred Sant on Friday was “but a government member providing a service to a member of the public”.

He did, however, insist that he would have no qualms about removing anyone from their position if he discovered clear evidence that one of his Cabinet had breached the code of ethics by carrying out private business.