The government has taken a major step towards the development of a new open centre at Ħal Far, raising capacity there to 2,400 asylum seekers.

A call for tender was issued on Wednesday for civil engineering and finishing works for the centre.

The National Programme linked to the Asylum, Migration and Integration Fund, valid for the period 2014 to 2020, had promised that Malta would “continue to focus on meeting the basic needs of migrants arriving in Malta in an irregular manner. It said that work would will be undertaken to provide adequate accommodation facilities together with the provision of basic material aid such as food, psychological support and health services. It is Malta’s objective to continue to improve accommodation facilities throughout the programming period & be able to accommodate migrants in the case of influxes.”

The programme’s aims were meant to be reached by 2022, with the reception centre being allocated a budget of €7 million, of which €5.25 million is committed EU co-financing.

The situation in Malta has changed since the programme was first drawn up, with the influx of foreign workers driving up rental prices and making it ever harder for the asylum seekers to become more independent. When the programme was being written, capacity was 1,200 and 2,000 for closed and open centres respectively.

The new facility will house 1,000, but because of the improvements envisaged to the existing centre, it will add 400 net places, bringing the total capacity of the open centre up to 2,400.

The centre will not only offer accommodation but is meant to bring together services aimed at the residents, from information about education and health, to services offered by the UNHCR and other NGOs.

The centre will also give the authorities more flexibility when it comes to separating different categories of asylum-seekers, such as minors and the vulnerable.

While in 2018, 1,445 arrived by boat, by March 2019, a total of 237 boat arrivals had been registered according to national statistics.