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The Malta government’s purchase of its consular building in Brussels at 25 Rue Archimede, did not go down well from the time that MaltaToday announced it was to cost the taxpayer Lm6.5 million.
Coming at a time when Malta’s Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi was asking us to tighten our belts and budget deficit concerns remained high on the agenda, the news proved more than disheartening to most.
The purchase price was revealed as Lm6.5 million, but at least Lm2.5m more will be needed to refurbish and critics, especially the Labour Party have claimed on several occasions that the overall price will be higher, sometimes mentioning Lm12 million as a more accurate estimate.
The purchase brought into the picture several prominent Maltese that usually prefer to avoid the limelight including Malta’s envoy to the EU Richard Cachia Caruana, and businessman Albert Mizzi who has enjoyed success under both PN and MLP governments for several decades.
Few opinion writers supported the buy, one of the notable exceptions being Daphne Caruana Galizia, whose husband Peter was also involved as a legal consultant in the purchase and eventually had to face the Public Accounts Committee in hearings on the issue.
Albert Mizzi famously said it was such a good investment he would buy the building if the government decided to get rid of it, but there were few other takers. The government argued all along that the price was right and that in the circumstances, it was the best option. Those arguments were put into more than a bit of doubt when The Times journalist Herman Grech showed that other new EU member states purchased cheaper or decided to rent. Grech also revealed how cheaper buildings were on the market in Brussels that could have been an alternative.
Richard Cachia Caruana put forward the argument that he wanted a building in walking distance from the EU buildings since he did not want Maltese officials to-ing and fro-wing in taxis and Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi, announced, after the purchase price had come in for criticism, that the Malta government would rend out several floors, sometimes three were mentioned and other times four, on a commercial basis.
But MaltaToday revealed how Malta House in Brussels does not include the ground floor, which would be attractive to shops, and that the decision to rent out meant that the tax exemptions offered to consular premises on the floors to be rented out would be lost. Weeks would pass before auditors KPMG Brussels would finally confirm that indeed the tax exemption would be lost, and it would seem that the idea of renting was an afterthought that sprung to mind after the criticism started.
Bondiplus whitewashed the purchase of the building when presenting a programme without asking some pertinent questions to the right people, and while the issue eventually fell on the lap of the Public Accounts Committee it failed to reach the sparkle expected with the general impression being that an expected grilling never materialising.
The lasting impression however is of a building that is too big and too expensive given the circumstances, even if some may claim that it was a good investment.
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