Justice Minister Owen Bonnici called on opposition leader Simon Busuttil to make good on his promise to sack officials that have been caught up in wrongdoing, and urged him to remove shadow minister for justice Jason Azzopardi.

The basis of such a call for action stems from an National Audit Office report which highlighted serious shortcomings in a 2012 land transfer deal between the former nationalist party (PN) government and a third party over the Löwenbräu site in Qormi.

The transfer of land happened under Dr Azzopardi’s watch, Dr Bonnici stressed.  The site in question is the Löwenbräu brewery and the case dates back to 1990, when the land was allocated to the brewery company on a perpetual basis.  Jumping ahead to 2009, Löwenbräu redeemed the ground rent for €465,875 while the government had agreed to cancel the conditions attached to the site, mainly that it was to be used for the production of alcohol.

The Lands Commissioner took issue with this and found a breach in the protocol as laid out by law, and sent a letter to Zaren Vassallo, from Vassallo Ltd who had been attempting to buy the land from Löwenbräu.

Dr Bonnici claimed that upon receiving the letter, Mr Vassallo went straight to then minister Jason Azzopardi, where he was told a compromise would be reached.

In the end, a contract of exchange was signed with the value of the land set at €706,400, based on estimates dating back to 1990, Dr Bonnici said, calling it a “mediocre estimate”.

He continued to say that the correct valuation in 2012 was that of €8 million. The NAO report had stipulated that Dr Azzopardi “shoulders an element of responsibility for the serious shortcomings noted in 2012, for he was aware of, yet failed to question, the grossly misrepresentative value of the land”.

Dr Bonnici highlighted the numerous times that opposition leader Busuttil had proclaimed that he would not hesitate to remove any deputy that is found to have carried out any form of wrongdoing, and therefore called on him to practice what he preached.