Parliament yesterday approved a motion put forward by Justice and Home Affairs Minister Tonio Borg to amend Article 3 of the Constitution on the Disposal of Government Land Act.
Minister Borg said that unrevised mortgage rates not be increased without revision.
He added that such land was leased at a ground rent for perpetuity without revision, but now, under this amendment, such land rates will be liable for revision and there will be no increase in mortgage rates unless the land is redeemed.
The government is redeeming emphyteusis without issuing a tender and is also granting the possibility of revision.
The second proposal concerned commercial land or leased land in relation to invalidity pensions.
Minister Borg said that a person aged under 61 and declared invalid could pass on leased property to offspring on the condition that the lease will increase by 10 per cent every ten years.
The third proposal regarded property belonging to the government overseas, such as The High Commission building in London, and the Maltese Embassy in Brussels. The offices in these buildings could be leased to a holistic entity without the issue of tenders for ten years.
Dr Borg said that Malta has the highest number of people who own their property.
He said the government is giving bond offers to companies in cases of land which could not be constructed.
People seemed more confident to sell land rather then rent it but the new government incentives should facilitate renting procedures.
In his address to Parliament, Labour MP Joe Brincat said he agreed with all of the proposals and that he could certainly not disagree with the first proposal as most people who had government property that was redeemed after the war had no money to pay for the land, and therefore most of that property had not been paid.
In relation to the second proposal regarding the invalidity pension on leased property, he said that this was more than justified.
Regarding the third proposal, he said the government must ensure that no abuse is perpetrated when its overseas property is leased. He said that this should be done according to the laws of the country in question.
Labour MP Stefan Buontempo said that he agreed with the motion. However, he said that the Joint office has created a bureaucratic hitch since citizens applying for land would have to wait for long periods of time, sometimes even years, without success.
He also spoke about the issue of vacant properties. He said that the 2005 census lists 53,000 uninhabited properties and this number has now risen to 70,000 vacant units estimated at Lm3.5bn.
Agreeing with Mr Buontempo, Labour MP Joe Mizzi said that the bureaucratic procedure for people to buy property took too long and was full of hitches. He said that parliament must ensure that no abuses take place.
He said that there were a lot of areas around Malta that impeded public access and said that the SmartCity area was currently not a safe place for citizens to walk through.
Labour MP Anton Refalo spoke about Bill 110 and criticised the health sector, the tourism sector and the educational sector in Gozo. He said that the Gozo General Hospital was running on poor equipment that was previously used at St Luke’s Hospital, and there was no ITU and CCU apparatus for patients.
The chemotherapy section offered very poor treatment and a number of machines in this hospital were not functioning.
He also spoke about the tourism sector in Gozo and said that a number of hotels had to close down because there were not enough tourists on the island. He said that the fuel charges and the helicopter issue had led to a very harmful impact on this industry in Gozo.
Mr Refalo said that the sixth form in Gozo was neglected and there was an oddly increasing number of applications for educational facilitators.
He said that while Mcast and the University in Malta were reaping a lot of benefits from recent agreements with the government, those in Gozo were in a very sorry state. Most counselling services and educational social services had been put on hold, he said.