A national tennis complex, which has cost taxpayers €2.9 million and was meant to be used for the Games of the Small States of Europe (GSSE), is nowhere near being finished days before the games start.
The tennis complex, situated in Pembroke next to the Melita Football Club pitch and St Clare’s College Secondary, was first announced in April 2019 as part of a €37.3 million investment by government agency SportMalta, falling under Education and Sports Minister Clifton Grima’s portfolio.
Running from 28 May to 3 June, the 2023 small nations’ games are being hosted by Malta this year, involving 10 sports disciplines with nine nations and around a thousand athletes expected to take part.
Works at the Pembroke tennis complex are nowhere close to being finished.
The tennis complex was to be built in two phases, the first involving the excavation and construction of six tennis courts and a car park, with the second phase seeing the construction of offices, a lounge, storerooms and facilities. A site visit by The Shift confirms that the first phase has not yet been completed.
In April 2021, it was announced that work on the tennis complex had begun with the hope of being used in this month’s games. At the time, SportMalta Chairman Luciano Busuttil said the facility would cost €1.3 million. By 2022, the cost had ballooned to €2.9 million.
By November 2022, it was clear the complex would not be finished in time for the 2023 GSSE, with a press release from Sports and Education Minister Clifton Grima opting instead to say that it was “moving along at a nice pace” with no mention of the games.
Sports Minister Clifton Grima during a site visit to the tennis complex in November 2022. Photos: DOI/Kian Bugeja
The €3 million tennis complex is not the only sports facility promised for the GSSE to remain unfinished.
Earlier in May, The Shift reported how an aquatic sports centre in Gozo costing €16 million, which is €7 million over budget, also completely missed its 2021 deadline and will similarly not be used for the small nations’ games as planned.
When Gozo Minister Clint Camilleri visited that project in Victoria on 13 May, he said that works were “progressing as planned and the first phase of the project, which includes the roofing of the facilities, is about to be completed,” glossing over the severe delays, setbacks and a ballooning budget.
With the small nations’ games right around the corner, it remains to be seen what ad-hoc solutions the Maltese government will resort to in an attempt to accommodate and host the games given that at least two of the planned complexes are nowhere near finished, landing far afield of their stated goals.
It is a fact and can be read:
If a project is not finished on time, it costs more and more every day!
3 Mio.? I don‘t trust it. At the end we pay more!
Only God knows were the money is going .
Not even Abela knows. He knows nothing. An idiot running the country and the 40 thieves have a clean run for the bank.
U EJJA!!!!!!!!
like mater dejn money
In the late eighties and early nineties, a study was commissioned to establish what would be best, whether to enlarge St. Luke’s hospital or build a new one.
The result was that there was not enough space to enlarge St. Luke’s, and it was concluded that a new 450-bed hospital should be built. This would complement St. Luke’s Hospital, so we would have had a total of 1450 beds.
But the study also concluded that this hospital would include a section for cancer research. And this was the best part of this whole project because it would have strengthened Malta’s standing in the medical field.
The government accepted the result of this study and decided to go ahead with the project at a cost of Lm40 million. San Raffaele was picked to run this project as they were the best in the business of cancer research in Europe.
Of course, as always happens, the Labour Party went all out against this idea. They said that this was a waste of money because St. Luke’s could be modernised and enlarged to take more beds.
Accusations of corruption against Skanska, the contractor awarded the contract, were the order of the day. At one point, Dr. Alfred Sant, then the opposition leader, said that when elected, they would tear it down slab by slab.
It so happened that the Labour Party was elected in 1996. Work on the hospital was stopped. They tinkered with the idea of enlarging St. Luke’s. I’m told that they even entertained the idea of taking over the broadcasting building but were advised against it.
So they came up with the idea of building a new 850-bed hospital. This is to take over from St. Luke’s. Suffice it to say that with 1,000 beds at St. Luke’s, the situation was still critical, because there were still patients being treated in the corridors. I should know because my mother was one of them.
So how anyone can solve this shortage of beds by building a hospital with fewer beds is enough to baffle anyone. But then, the Labour Party is great at solving problems.
Of course, the contract for the works was given to Skanska again, after all the mudslinging and calling Skanska “barons”. Such hypocrisy is beyond me.
Whole blocks of the previous buildings were pulled down because the foundations could not take the weight of the extra stories. Plans were drawn up in such a hurry that, at one stage, there was a door leading to a field.
That was what a well-studied plan for a new hospital was reduced to. Building an 850-bed hospital, when the trend in Europe was to build hospitals of between 400-500 beds so they would be more manageable.
But this has always been the drawback of our political system and the Labour Party. If it is not their idea, then it must be wrong and must be criticised and ridiculed.
The Labour Party’s tenure in government lasted for only 22 months. Unfortunately, the next PN government led by Dr. Fenech Adami had to carry on with the same plans barring a few small alterations because of the astronomical expense of going back to the original plans.
Mater Dei Hospital really is a state-of-the-art hospital, with a dedicated staff, who deserve a lot more praise and money than they get. But, and this is a big but, it is not catering to the needs of the people.
It is absolutely disgraceful to have patients being treated in corridors. A hospital that costs so many millions to build and equip, and politics had to put on its ugly face and deprive the Maltese people of such a masterpiece.
But then, that is what happens when amateurs try to take over from professionals.
This is what changing a winning horse means. In 1996, the electorate (as was their right) decided to change. But was it a change for the better? Definitely not, and within months, this was so clear that Sant was voted out again. The change the people wanted in 1996 destroyed what was to be a hospital with a research center (which incidentally would have brought a lot of money with it) into a state-of-the-art hospital, that was not big enough to cater to today’s needs.
Is having an 850-bed hospital better than having two hospitals with 1,450 beds between them? Apparently, for the Labour Party, 850 beds would solve the problem of overcrowding.
A total waste of money due to bad planning and management.
Let’s see when the projects will be completed, at what cost and how maintained and managed.
Hopefully better than the shooting range!
THESE INCOMPETENT CORRUPT LABOUR IDIOTS. IT’S NOT ABOUT THE COMPLETION. ITS ABOUT THE COSTS BALLOONING. BIGGER COMMISSIONS!!!
THESE INCOMPETENT CORRUPT LABOUR IDIOTS. IT’S NOT ABOUT THE COMPLETION. ITS ABOUT THE COSTS BALLOONING!!!
Only their bullshit reaches the target. The sky is the limit.
This is nothing but a remake fiasco of the shooting site a few years back and the Gozo swimming pool.
It is a way to create panic and so issue direct orders ovet and above any tender agreement, if they bothered to issue a tender in the first case.
All of these underhand maneuvers only lead to instill suspicions of foul play and commissions payouts