The current debate on Manoel Island is healthy. New converts to the cause are being identified every day. Plenty of U-turns too.
A basic point being made at the time of writing is that, through the Lands Authority, government should be in a position to monitor continuously how public land is being used.
The monitoring should be made in real time. It should be normal and continuous for all concessions: from the simple concession relative to tables and chairs to the largest possible concession. There should be no need for government to be prodded by petitions in order to act.
Contracts and concessions create rights and duties. Both should be honoured.
Why, may I ask, has the Prime Minister to request an analysis in respect of the Manoel Island/Tigne Point concession? Should not the Lands Authority (or its predecessor the Lands Department) be already well briefed and in a position to inform him immediately, on how it has already acted to ensure that concession conditions have been honoured?
If the Lands Authority (or its predecessor) had done its duty in a timely manner, no additional action would be required at this point in time.
The contract between government and MIDI plc, relative to Tigne Point and Manoel Island, signed on the 15 June 2000 established that "the entire development shall be substantially completed by the thirty-first (31st) day of March of the year two thousand and twenty-three (2023)" (Article 8.1.4 of contract). This means that 26 months ago, the development should have already been substantially complete.
The same article of the contract establishes daily fines to be payable in case of delays in substantially completing the development. A daily fine of €350 (Lm150) was the fine applicable for the first six months delay. Subsequently this was to increase to €1,166.67 (Lm500) per day. Provided that, if the delay persisted for more than three years (that is to say beyond 31 March 2026 - in ten months' time), government would have the right to revoke the concession given to MIDI plc.
Have the fines due been collected? Should not the government already be considering whether to revoke the concession in whole or in part?
Basically, this is the situation. The development most clearly is already delayed. In ten months it will be delayed such that government can, in terms of the contract signed twenty-five years ago take back the land subject of the concession.
What happens now is anybody's guess. Most probably the government will communicate with the developer who will seek to justify the delays on the basis of matters beyond his control. There may obviously be some of these, but there are also a multitude of other instances where this is not the case.
For example, one such unjustified delay occurred relative to the Environment Impact Assessment (EIA) which MIDI plc commissioned in respect of the Manoel Island outline application. Instead of ensuring that the assessors were independent, one of the assessors selected was the son of a MIDI plc Director. He carried out the EIA's cultural heritage assessment report. On the basis of the resulting conflict of interest the EIA and the associated outline development permit were cancelled by the Environment and Planning Review Tribunal. This resulting delay cannot, and should not be utilised to extend the completion date as it results from a failure of MIDI plc to act properly in selecting the EIA assessors. This is just one example, and it accounts for around three of the years lost!
This is not a statement on the assessor's competence. It is rather a statement on the fact that he was not the appropriate choice to carry out the assessment.
Government is in a strong position to negotiate with the developers and as a result to address the fallout from the Manoel Island petition. Will it? I have my doubts. Time will tell whether anything significant will come out of all this.
The campaign to take back Manoel Island and convert it into a national park has been going on for years as the population at large has never accepted the concession made to MIDI plc. The petition signed by over 29,000 persons in the past days has now rekindled the debate and brought matters to a head.
Government should act on the matter and use its negotiating power to get Manoel Island back into the public domain. This is permissible even within the parameters of the contract with MIDI plc for the concession. A contract which was entered into by a PN led government but supported unanimously by a Parliament made up exclusively of PLPN Members of Parliament. The government property agency has always failed to monitor the manner in which the regulatory aspects of its concessions and contracts function in practice. The general impression is that it is always an exercise in one-way traffic, just rights for the speculators, without any emphasis on the applicable duties towards the community.
Monitoring to ensure the adherence to concession conditions should be the norm at the Lands Authority. It should be inbuilt into its operational procedures and be carried out transparently. If it is not a transparent procedure there will be the risk of underhand manoeuvres to ensure that one-way traffic remains the practice.
It is about time that authorities function properly, by ensuring that the nation's assets are properly administered. Taking back Manoel Island would be an appropriate first step.
An architect and civil engineer, the author is a former Chairperson of ADPD-The Green Party in Malta. [email protected] , http://carmelcacopardo.wordpress.com