Dalli’s Project Green is two years late on €11 million Bormla garden

Environment Minister Miriam Dalli, responsible for Project Green, announced that the agency has issued a tender to find contractors for transforming a small, old car park in Bormla into a community garden and meditation space.

This announcement regarding the procurement process comes two years after the same Minister originally stated that work on the project would begin.

Two summers ago, Dalli held a press conference in Bormla, near one of the gates leading to the former Dockyard, announcing that work on the garden would begin in September 2023. No works have been carried out since.

The only exception was that Dalli’s agency, managed by the disgraced former MFSA chief Joseph Cuschieri, had granted a direct order of €1 million to architect Edwin Mintoff to design the proposed garden and oversee the application process with the Planning Authority.

Now, two years later, Project Green issued a tender asking contractors to bid for the project set to cost close to €11 million, which covers just 3,000 square metres – less than half the size of a football field.

The tender document states that the project is not expected to be completed until 2028, assuming the agency begins work at the start of next year.

The plan includes the construction of an underground parking facility for 240 cars, with a garden to be built on top of it. Additionally, the project involves dismantling a gantry crane previously owned by Malta Drydocks.

Until recently, the car park site was one of several parcels of public land transferred to a Jordanian businessman for the development of the American University of Malta, a controversial project.

The project, one of the first shady deals involving disgraced former prime minister Joseph Muscat, was initially set to include a dormitory on the site, which will now be transformed into a garden. The American University of Malta has never managed to meet the milestones required according to its concession contract.

The same architect responsible for the dormitory, Edwin Mintoff, has now been assigned by Project Green to create the plans for the garden through a €1 million direct order.

After being elected as Labour leader and Prime Minister in 2020, Robert Abela reversed Muscat’s plans in response to protests and strong opposition from the residents of Bormla.

So far, Project Green has not had a significant impact on Malta’s environment, despite the millions of euro invested in the agency, which has so far only managed to gain notoriety for the hefty cost of employees on its payroll, mainly individuals connected to the Labour Party or friends of the CEO Cuschieri.