A private real estate agency has opened a shop at Xewkija’s Industrial Estate in a location reserved for manufacturing businesses.

INDIS — the government agency managing industrial estates — confirmed to The Shift that Gozo Prime Agency Ltd is occupying premises inside the industrial estate without its permission.

In response to The Shift’s request for information, INDIS said inspectors will be sent to investigate the irregular possession of these premises and will take the necessary measures.

Gozo Prime is owned by John Abela from Rabat (Malta) and John Falzon of Zebbug, and was registered in 2022. They own several businesses together including Keen Advertising Agency, which also operates from offices in the same industrial estate and lists the Gozo Ministry, the Gozo Regional Development Authority, the Malta Tourism Authority, Minister Anton Refalo’s, l-Eremita hotel and Barts Medical School as clients.

It is not known whether Keen has permission to operate there since its main business has nothing to do with manufacturing.

Directors John Abela and John Falzon and an advert on their real estate company’s irregular relocation

According to the law regulating industrial estates, only manufacturing business should be allocated space in such publicly owned industrial estates.

This rule has become elastic over the past decade as the government has allowed non-manufacturing companies to open related businesses like cafes and eateries in subsidised spaces intended for industrial use.

Others have been allowed to make a quick buck from public industrial property they were allocated many years ago, either by keeping the property and using it irregularly for storage or by subletting the government premises to third parties.

While some businessmen have managed to circumvent the rules with help from the authorities in obtaining the necessary permits, others took the law into their own hands with little or no enforcement.

INDIS is also pursuing court cases against other illegal occupants of its premises.