New Lands Authority scheme tailor-made to benefit the Prime Minister

A new government scheme aimed at bypassing the competitive tendering process and extending expired temporary emphyteutical concessions of public property by a further 50 years was tailor-made to personally benefit Prime Minister Robert Abela.

Lands Authority sources speaking to The Shift have pointed out how the wording of a legal notice published a few weeks ago was personally vetted by the Prime Minister to ensure an expired concession in Valletta that he owns would benefit from the new scheme.

“The main reason behind this new ‘regularisation’ scheme is for the Prime Minister to retain possession of an office on Strait Street, which has an expired concession, for the next 50 years,” an official explained to The Shift on condition of anonymity.

“Many others will also benefit from the scheme since the PM could not have had it issued just for himself. The Lands Authority is taking the occasion to kill several birds with one stone by currying favour with several voters and their families,” they added.

Abela Advocates and the expired concession

53/3 on Valletta’s Strait Street is a well-placed office in the heart of the capital, particularly for a law firm since it is just metres away from the law courts.

The 150-year concession was awarded to the original tenants in 1867.  It was used for many years by the Prime Minister’s father, George Abela and his then-associate Ian Stafrace, who was later appointed as the Planning Authority’s chief executive officer.

When Stafrace was removed from the position in 2013, he stopped working for the Abelas and branched out into his own private practice. Just a few years earlier, his wife, Claire Stafrace Zammit, had been made a Magistrate.

Stafrace transferred the title on the Strait Street office to Robert Abela, at the time a budding lawyer at his father’s firm, Abela Advocates, when there were just five years left on the concession.

Even though the concession on the Strait Street office expired in 2017, the Abelas did not return the keys to the Lands Authority but, rather, continued occupying the office up to this very day.

Through the new scheme, the government will effectively be giving them the opportunity to remain in possession of the government property for another 50 years by paying just 2% of the property’s market value as ground rent.

While the use of such properties, according to law, should be granted through a public tender, the new scheme completely bypasses the process by simply providing lengthy five-decade extensions.

The Lands Authority turned down a freedom of information request from The Shift earlier this year for a copy of Abela’s concession agreement. It was refused with the reasoning that “the public interest served by non-disclosure outweighs the public interest in disclosure”.