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Julian Manduca
The decision to grant former Prime Minister Dom Mintoff Lm360,000 for the loss he suffered because of the siting of the Delimara power station next to his summer house and his request for further compensation has caused consternation in certain quarters.
The decision has upset thousands of landowners that have been deprived of their land by expropriation over the past fifty years.
MaltaToday spoke to Francis Bezzina Wettinger, 78, a former member of parliament with Boffa’s Malta Workers Party who has a major share in 13 tumoli of land expropriated by government for the building of the same power station in order to try and establish what compensation was being offered to others.
The land in question was expropriated in 1988 and belongs to Bezzina Wettinger and the heirs of Angelo Grima, known as Tal Qutu.
MaltaToday has learned that this expropriation has not been brought before the court, as is normal procedure, to date, sixteen years later.
Bezzina Wettinger, who was in Parliament in the early 1950s, was a member of the Malta Workers Party after Mintoff’s split with Boffa.
According to a valuation made in 1996, architects that work both in private and government sectors calculated that Bezzina Wettinger has had Lm2.6 million worth of land taken away from him by government over a span of time.
Bezzina Wettinger told MaltaToday that over the years different administrations expropriated more than 100 tumoli of land from him and his partners.
He said that in 1961 he had 46 plots in the area that is now part of the University at Msida Heights Tal-Qroqq, whisked away from him, and 14 plots from the site nearby which is now the National Swimming Pool.
On 12 January 1962 Bezzina Wettinger faced a further expropriation of land over the Regional Road Bridge, near the Clausura Convent in St Julians. Nine plots were taken from him that time. A government gazette announcement on 8 July 1966 continued where the previous expropriation took off and another two plots went with the wind in the form of land under the Regional Road bridge in San Gwann.
A larger piece of land in Bahar ic-Caghaq, Bezzina Wettinger told MaltaToday, measuring 2,518 square metres – 16 plots – went government’s way on 26 May 1992.
In July of 1976, a massive area was taken away from Bezzina Wettinger in Qrendi near Hagar Qim for the ‘Izra u Rabbi.’ The area measures 65 tumoli and Bezzina Wettinger owns five sevenths of it.
Throughout all these years Bezzina Wettinger and his partners have not seen one cent in compensation.
To add insult to injury, since Bezzina Wettinger has continued to pay the ground rent on his properties, paying at the rate of about Lm1,500 yearly for the last 43 years.
MaltaToday is informed that the Land Arbitration Board, which meets once a week, generally on a Monday, and 60 to 75 cases are discussed making a total of over 1,000 expropriation cases per year. MaltaToday was told that during these sittings about five cases per year are decided and in some years no decision has been taken. Learned judge Albert Magri quoted the British Court and Halsbury in a keynote decision given in 1961. “Tribunals assessing compensation,” Halsbury says “may take into account not only the present purpose to which the land is applied, but also any other more beneficial purpose to which in the course of events it might within a reasonable period be applied, just as an owner might do if he were bargaining with a purchaser in the market. The value for future purposes is generally referred to as the potential value of the land.
“The principle is applicable whether the owner has acquired the land in order to use it for some particular purpose or whether he has no such present intention.”
Bezzina Wettinger has four cases against the government that are still to be decided, and is hoping for a positive decision on one of the cases on 29 October of this year.
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