The Lands Authority will have to undertake a fresh valuation of the Fortina waiver, after Malta's parliamentary Audit Committee ruled that previous assessments were either incomplete or inconsistent with the authority's legal framework.
The committee has given the Authority two months to report back with the new valuation.
The decision follows findings from a report by the Auditor General last month, which revealed that a valuation prepared by auditors Grant Thornton, placing the land's worth at €18 million, had been suppressed by Lino Farrugia Sacco, the former chair of the Lands Authority's board of governors.
Earlier valuations produced by the Lands Authority's architects had placed the land's value at €8.1 million and another draft at €12.1 million.
Meanwhile, an independent valuation commissioned by the Auditor General during his investigation put the figure at €21 million. Fortina ultimately paid €8.1 million for the waiver.
On Monday, just hours before the committee convened, Fortina submitted its own valuation, arguing that under current rules, the waiver would be worth €4.7 million.
The company cited what it described as "material errors, methodological flaws, and internal inconsistencies" in the NAO's methodology.
Despite this, the committee concluded that none of the existing valuations could be considered definitive.
Committee chair Ian Borg questioned whether any of the valuations complied with the law, which requires a valuation to be signed off by three architects.
While the Lands Authority's original 2017 valuations were drafted by three architects, the committee agreed they were flawed because parts of the land were excluded.
"It is not usual practice for the party receiving the waiver to prepare its own valuation," PN MP Ryan Callus said, referring to Fortina's own valuation.
The Auditor General's valuation, conducted by a single architect, also did not meet the legal requirement, Borg pointed out.
"The NAO's valuation is a guide, but we cannot rely on it," Borg said.
Callus added that "we cannot accept that other holistic valuations, taking all of the land into account, are discarded."
Borg spoke against ignoring existing assessments, saying that he hoped there is nobody in this country who thinks they can carry out a valuation on this land and pretend that these new valuations do not exist.
When questioned why the NAO did not engage three architects as required by law, NAO officials argued that "the Lands Authority's law requires three architects, but the NAO's law does not."
Assistant Auditor General Keith Mercieca explained that "the level of scrutiny in our valuations differs from that of the Lands Authority. The NAO cannot assume the Authority's responsibility."
He added that the NAO's valuation followed the methodology used by architects in such assessments and aligned with standard audit practices.
PN MP Stanley Zammit echoed this point, saying that "NAO's work was not to create a valuation; it was to audit whether procedures were correctly followed."
Auditor General Charles Deguara said that ultimately, if three architects had been engaged to carry out a comprehensive valuation of the missing sites initially, "we would not be in this position today."