Marsa racetrack concession: development application withdrawn at eleventh hour

Another multi-million-euro public concession, given by the Labour government of disgraced former prime minister Joseph Muscat, has drawn a blank, as its owners, Marsa Racetrack Ltd, withdrew their long-promised development application on the day it was slated for refusal by the Planning Authority.

The withdrawal, announced by the concessionaires’ architect Edwin Mintoff, arrived moments before the Planning Authority was expected to dismiss the project as the application was considered half-baked and lacked basic information.

Recommending a refusal, the Planning Authority’s case officer report stated that the application, filed in 2019, had missing documents, preventing a proper assessment.

The concession to hand over the Marsa horse racing track to a group of foreign investors and a Maltese contractor was signed in 2017. Only one consortium showed interest in the request for proposals.

According to the concessionaires and Muscat, the agreement should have led to a massive multi-million-euro investment in a new state-of-the-art horse racing track, capable of attracting international races, such as those held in Dubai.

In typical style, the government had also made it easier for the investors to recoup their promised investment by adding a parcel of land outside the race course to the concession, on which they could build commercial offices and a retail block. The latter did not form part of the published concession.

All the investment was meant to be finished by 2023. Despite all the promises, nothing has been done yet.

The government has so far refrained from intervening despite the blatant breaches in the concession terms.

Marsa Racetrack Ltd includes four different owners. Most shares are held by Hugh Morshead, Vice Chairman of Henley & Partners Holdings Ltd and Head of the firm’s Government Advisory Practice. The firm sold Maltese passports on behalf of the government.

His Maltese partner, holding 40%, is road contractor F. Schembri & Sons, known as id-Dobbu.

Two other small shareholders are True and Type Ltd, an Irish company, and Kusam Sharma, holder of a British passport.

For years, horse owners and enthusiasts have been promised that the project, revamping the whole racecourse, was about to start.

Two years after its supposed completion, the project is still at the design stage.