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Julian Manduca
While the Ministry for Justice and Home Affairs said it would be too time consuming to calculate the amount of money the government owes to individuals that it expropriated land from, minister Tonio Borg had calculated that Lm17 million was owed in 1993, when he was still a member of parliament.
The younger Borg had made the expropriation law something of a crusade for himself when an MP and had called the law one which went against human rights. Since he became minister he has taken steps to improve the law, but families that have had tens of tumoli appropriated from them in the 1960s still have not seen a cent in compensation.
Since becoming minister the law that regulates expropriation has been changed and more money is being paid to those that lost their land. “Under the term during which Dr Tonio Borg was Minister, the amount of compensation paid for expropriation has been doubled,” a ministry spokesperson told MaltaToday.
Minister Borg also ensured that the law was changed so that today “for expropriation orders to be issued, the compensation has to be deposited to the owner`s credit in a bank account before such expropriation is executed. Such compensation may be withdrawn without prejudice to the owner`s right to demand a higher amount of compensation before the Land Arbitration Board.” While that may be of benefit to those suffering recent expropriations, others whose land was expropriated many years ago do not enjoy the same possibility.
Over the past weeks MaltaToday carried two stories about families that have seen their land whisked away from them years ago and have not yet been compensated. Francis Bezzina Wettinger together with others has lost about 100 tumoli of land since 1961 including some that has been used for the university and another large tract of land where the Delimara power station now lies. Although he continues to pay ground rent on these properties he has not received any compensation. The Frendo Randon family together with a host of other relatives saw land they own expropriated in 1969 and are now up in arms after it was announced the land will be used by the French owned company CMA CGM to further their business interests.
Tonio Borg 1993
Speaking in Parliament during the adjournment, an enthusiastic Tonio Borg told his fellow parliamentarians that expropriation was a matter of national importance and that “in several instances the law went against human rights, even if not fundamental human rights, but against the rights of citizens.”
Borg said that when he was looking through the reports of government departments he saw that the amount stated as being due for expropriated land was Lm11.5 million. However, he noted that the statistic did not take into consideration that the amount was likely to rise following the contestations made by individuals as the Lands Arbitration Board could decree that higher amounts are due than what the government was proposing.
“It must also be said,” Borg told Parliament, “that the sum did not include interest of 5 percent that the government must pay between the time the government takes possession of the land and when the purchase contract is finalised.”
“This means that although the figure is Lm11.5 million, it is probable that it should be in the region of Lm17 million. That is my calculation, but the figure could be higher because we cannot say how much the compensation the Land Arbitration Board will decide upon,” Borg added.
“This was an injustice,” he said “because we remember, when the Building Development Areas law was in place, with what brashness certain large areas of land were expropriated.”
Way back in 1993 Tonio Borg, still a backbencher, explained why he thought the law was unjust. “Because the law provides that one has the right to contest the compensation, which means one has the right to appear before someone to establish what would be just compensation after receiving a letter - notice to treat - from the government stating that one’s land has been taken and offering a sum for it.
“Logic would lead you to believe the ‘notice to treat’ should be issued together with the declaration in the government gazette when one’s land is taken, but in practice in many instances this in not what happens… First the government declaration is made by the President, then the government takes the land, builds on it – for social purposes – even if one has no legal right to ask whether the land is to be taken in the public interest, but let us assume that that was the case; and the ‘notice to treat’ is not issued.
“Since the right to request the Lands Arbitration Board to decide on the amount of compensation depends on the notice to treat one has no remedy.”
Tonio Borg told the members of Parliament of a case where the notice to treat took between ten to twelve years to be issued.
When the then MP addressed Parliament he had asked how many expropriations were being made by the government on a yearly basis, and said the time has come to first tackle the oldest cases of expropriation, some of which dated back to the 1960s. The number given to him was 50 yearly, but he said he believed the number was higher.
Tonio Borg 2004
When MaltaToday asked minister Tonio Borg how much money is owed by the government to private individuals for land expropriated by the government two weeks ago, Borg did not make his own calculations, but replied: “It is not possible to declare the amount owed by the government to private individuals for land expropriated by the government, since the value changes according to the market value.
“According to Chapter 88, the compensation offered has to be a reflection of the market value as at the time of service of official communication to the owner. Thus in order to be in a position to give the requested amount at any one time, all pending expropriations would have to be re-valued at that time.”
When MaltaToday asked whether he considered the amounts being made to be just compensation, the minister replied: “Any person whose property is expropriated and is not happy with the compensation offered can object, and recourse is made to the Land Arbitration Board for a final judgement.
“It may be pertinent to point out that the valuations are carried out by architects in private employ, who have years of experience in the workings of Chapter 88.
Replying to MaltaToday’s question as to whether the government was considering changing the law so that people who have land expropriated from them are compensated by the market price or at least something close to that, Minister Borg replied: “Chapter 88 already caters for this.”
Indeed minister Borg was instrumental in seeing that the law that caters for compensation for expropriated property was amended so that the amount reflects the market value.
Minister Borg, who is also the Deputy Prime Minister, failed to answer questions put to him by this newspaper as to whether he still considered the law to be unjust.
julian@newsworksltd.com
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