Fort San Salvatore in Kalkara, handed by former prime minister Dom Mintoff to his brother and four others, would be a boutique hotel today if Malta Developers Association president Sandro Chetcuti had his way.

Sandro Chetcuti

Mr Chetcuti has had a promise of sale agreement on the fort for some eight years. He told Times of Malta he had put together a consortium with investors interested in the south to transform the “disturbed environment” in the historical fort into a “tourist attraction”.

Yet the former Nationalist administration would not give him the guarantee he was looking for that the fort would not be expropriated and returned to the people. In Mr Chetcuti’s words, this was “an obstacle” to his project and he was no longer interested in the site.

Still, he remains a signatory on the promise of sale agreement because the case ended up in court over “technicalities”, Mr Chetcuti said, adding it was a pity his original effort never bore fruit.

“I only try to do good. It was a brilliant idea. It’s a pity we weren’t taken seriously at the time. First we’re told to focus on restorations not new buildings and then all we face are obstacles,” he added, making no distinction between an old townhouse and a historic fort.

Last Sunday, this newspaper reported how the fort was offered to a private investor for €3.2 million, but Mr Chetcuti said any such move was made behind his back. He insisted his only interest in the fort was the boutique hotel he had planned. He stressed the project was a “win-win situation” because the fort was in a derelict state following its use as a batching plant.

I only try to do good... It’s a pity we weren’t taken seriously at the time

Nationalist Party MP Jason Azzopardi, who was responsible for the Land Department then, confirmed Mr Chetcuti had one meeting with him. It was around 2009, when the government was amending the expropriation law to include historical buildings.

Before thatn, the law made no distinction between a building site and national heritage. “He [Mr Chetcuti] came to see me following an interview I gave on the changes to the law. He wanted a guarantee that Fort San Salvatore would not be expropriated. I obviously could not give that guarantee. That’s a government decision, not mine,” Dr Azzopardi said.

“I remember being stunned after he left. I had no idea until his visit that the fort was in private hands. It convinced me even further that changes to the law were needed.”

Interest in developing the fort for commercial purposes has been ongoing. The 18th-century fort was one of the sites recently suggested as an alternative to Żonqor Point for a new university in the south. The proposal overlooked the fact the fort was privately owned.

Mr Chetcuti explained there were two main obstacles to using the fort for development: first, there were squatters on site that had some form of rights to the property and second, getting a planning authority permit was “difficult at the time”.

Last week, reacting to an Opposition parliamentary question, the government tabled the 1958 contract in which the former Labour prime minister Dom MIntoff passed the fort to Prestressed Concrete Limited. The ground rent was £100, payable in advance to the Treasury every six months.

It was one thing Mr Mintoff did before resigning as a form of confrontation against British colonial power. Mr Mintoff had passed the ‘Break with Britain’ resolution because the British services would guarantee workers’ jobs.

The fort was passed to the owners of the concrete company: his brother Ray, as well as Saviour Guillaumier, Louis Naudi, Frank Abela and Francis Dingli.

In 1982, again when Mr Mintoff was prime minister, the emphyteusis for Fort San Salvatore was redeemed and became private property. The fort was acquired for just Lm2,000 (€4,650).