The land swap deal the government is proposing with Sadeen Group’s American University of Malta and Smart City in Kalkara will be debated in parliament’s plenary after the National Audit Office Accounts Committee failed to reach unanimity about it on Thursday.
The Opposition’s representatives on the committee, Darren Carabott and Rebakah Cilia, voted against two resolutions for land in Senglea and Marsascala earmarked for the AUM to return to the government, with the university instead being given land at SmartCity to develop a campus.
The resolutions were tabled by Economy Minister Silvio Schembri following months of negotiations with both the AUM and SmartCity Malta.
The deal will see the controversial university being given a plot of land, measuring over 31,500 square metres to develop the campus it had previously been planning on an outside development zone at Żonqor in Marsascala and the dormitory on a site in Senglea, close to its present campus in Cospicua.
AUM’s plans to build a campus in Marsascala had drawn nationwide protests in 2015, with the government eventually pledging to not allow that project until AUM had filled its Cospicua campus.
The university’s plans to build a dormitory instead of a car park in Senglea had also attracted widespread irritation within Cottonera, with even Labour whip Glenn Bedingfield making a public plea for the university to change tack.
The new deals were announced by Prime Minister Robert Abela during the electoral campaign.
The PN’s representatives on the committee stressed on Thursday that while the party was not against the return of the Żonqor land, its position was that it should not have been taken in the first place.
Carabott also questioned whether the government was happy with the AUM’s performance so far, since it attracted fewer than 200 students in four years. “The government clearly wants to continue working with someone who failed to get his project in Malta going,” he told the committee.
When it was first announced in 2015, AUM investors Sadeen Group said they intended to attract hundreds of students to the private university within a few years of operation.
Carabott said the government should have taken back the land at Marsascala without compensating Sadeen with land at Smart City since the AUM failed to live up to its contractual obligations.
He said the Opposition was willing to vote in favour of that part of the deal that provides for the land at Żonqor to be returned, but it was against the part of the contract that gives more to Sadeen, despite its failure to live up to its obligations.
According to the resolutions, the government will be allocating almost 45,000 square metres of land in SmartCity for AUM can build its new campus alongside a new campus the government plans to build for the Institute of Tourism Studies.
SmartCity Malta is now obliged to build a new private primary and secondary school as well as develop some 7,000 square metres of space for businesses instead of the originally-planned apartments. These must be completed within five years from when permits are issued.
In turn, the government committed itself to upgrading the road network leading to SmartCity Malta, including a ring road around the entire site as well as a 600-car underground car park and a shuttle bus linking SmartCity to AUM in Cospicua from where people can get a boat to Valletta.
In a separate resolution, Schembri proposed that the area in Senglea where AUM wanted to build its dormitory will be turned into a public garden. AUM will also be given five garages in the area.
Schembri insisted that Sadeen had not breached any of its contractual obligations because the contract still has many years for the targets to be met. The university must reach the 400 student target by April 2029.
On the conditions with SmartCity Malta, Schembri said these were the same as the original contract that was negotiated by previous PN administrations and the government was bound by it.