The Government is selling on plan 3,000 graves at the main public cemetery for €5,000 each.

But do not rush to book because there are already about 6,000 people on a waiting list, with the oldest application dating back 20 years.

Health Minister Joe Cassar yesterday said the tendering process for the construction of graves at Addolorata Cemetery will close next week and the work was expected to start soon afterwards.

He said people on the waiting list would soon receive a letter asking them to come forward and sign a promise-of-sale agreement. The vast majority of those on the waiting list, some 5,000, want a grave at Addolorata.

The Government has said it will also build 76 graves at the Mellieħa cemetery.

The price of graves announced yesterday was lower than a figure revealed by Dr Cassar in Parliament last year. When answering a parliamentary question, he had said the real cost of a new grave was €8,000.

Graves had appeared on the national agenda just before the last election when the Government announced plans to extend the Addolorata cemetery and build 2,000.

A billboard was also erected outside the cemetery’s main gate publicising the plans but in November 2009, then Social Policy Minister John Dalli revised his predecessor’s plans.

A more ambitious three-year project costing €33 million would have seen a total of 9,000 new graves added. The money would have come from the sale of the graves at €8,000 each.

The project never took off and in February last year Dr Cassar scrapped the proposal for a scaled down extension of 3,000 graves.

ksansone@timesofmalta.com