The Land Department has admitted it knowingly leased to an entrepreneur a Mdina property it was aware would be gutted due to government restoration.

I was punished with a wall of silence

The move caused the financial ruin of 47-year-old Stefan Vassallo, who won the bid for the property’s 15-year lease in 2007, only to be forced to close down four years later due to the restoration of the city bastions that house the vaulted rooms.

Mr Vassallo had refurbished the rooms and transformed them from a shell to an artisan culinary centre he called Maħzen XII.

He poured some €200,000 of his own money into the venture only to be forced to close shortly after opening the doors to customers. The bastions restoration turned the place back to a shell.

However, in the wake of a story in The Sunday Times of Malta, exposing Mr Vassallo’s case, the Land Department confirmed it had been aware of the restoration since 2006 but still leased the property without informing the new tenant.

A spokeswoman said the Land Department had actually been told not to lease the premises by the Government Property Department (GPD) in light of studies undertaken for the planned restoration.

However, in September of the same year, the GPD asked for the tendering process for the lease to proceed “without delay in order to halt the deterioration of premises” .

The property was leased out ‘tale quale’, after Mr Vassallo submitted the winning bid.

In a letter from the Land Department in May, 2011, Mr Vassallo was asked to evacuate the premises for 18 months, the spokeswoman said.

The spokeswoman insisted it is not within the department’s competence to grant compensation.

The department said it would only notify tenants once a request is received from the government department/ entity concerned.

The whole debacle, however, left Mr Vassallo in financial ruin. He was slapped with a €3,700 fine by the VAT department for not filing his returns on time and even had a court order for his arrest for falling behind with some creditors.

Mr Vassallo said: “When planning a business in Malta 90 per cent of your efforts are wasted on a mountain of bureaucracy, rather than focusing on how to establish an innovative and profitable business.

“I was also punished with a wall of silence that devastated my business, kept me in suspense for seven years, and saw me threatened with imprisonment,” he said.

Since the story appeared last Sunday, Mr Vassallo has been contacted by the Office of the Prime Minister, which is looking into the case.

mmicallef@timesofmalta.com