A farmer is claiming he is being evicted from land he has tilled for over 30 years to make way for a Wasteserv incinerator, without being given an alternative site, something he says he was promised two years ago.

John Pullicino was one of several Magħtab farmers who in 2020 protested the expropriation of arable land by the waste treatment agency to expand its landfill and operations in the area.

Eventually, the farmers had reached a verbal agreement with the government and Wasteserv that while a lot of the land would not be expropriated, Pullicino would be transferred to an adjacent piece of land that was not needed for the project, a representative of the farmers said.

But, last month, Pullicino was informed by the Lands Authority that he was to vacate the fields that he originally started tilling with his in-laws over 30 years ago.

According to documents seen by Times of Malta, the agriculture department has long recognised Pullicino as the farmer that tilled the land. However, when his mother-in-law died in 2015, the Lands Department did not transfer the title of the land onto his wife’s name, despite being one of the heirs.

Since then, Pullicino has been requesting the authorities to transfer the lease onto his name.

When he enquired with the authorities about their verbal agreement to transfer the soil from the 1.5 hectare field he tills to an adjacent untilled field, as promised, Pullicino was told there was nothing in writing. 

Pullicino opened a dispute over the transfer of the lease in court, technically halting the eviction. But earlier this month, he found excavators clearing the fields of soil. He immediately launched a prohibitory injunction that was upheld by the courts.

“But even this didn’t stop the excavators. Two days later the machinery was back in motion and had to be stopped by the police,” Pullicino, who is being represented by lawyer David Camilleri, added.

'Lease termination process undertaken two years ago'

Questions about the verbal agreement were sent to Wasteserv, the Ministry for Lands and the Office of the Prime Minister.

A spokesperson for Wasteserv said that since the case is currently subject to judicial proceedings it was not at liberty to discuss this case in detail.

“However, Wasteserv affirms that the applicable lease termination process for the government land required for ECOHIVE, an environmental project of national importance, has already been undertaken, over two years ago,” she said.

“Having said that, no termination of lease was required with the indicated person since he has no title over the land in question.”

The spokesperson added that Wasteserv was very sensitive to the pleas of farmers who had land in the vicinity of its premises.

“In fact, one of the main objectives of its €500 million investment strategy is to end Malta’s historic reliance on landfilling and the resulting expropriation of massive tracks of land it entailed,” she said.

“Moreover, Wasteserv optimised its project plans to reduce land uptake to a third of the original proposal.”

Noting that work on the ECOHIVE project was advancing rapidly, she warned that delays would result in serious environmental and financial repercussions for Malta.

Wasteserv will continue working to make sure such delays are avoided.

At the beginning of its replies to Times of Malta’s questions, Wasteserv said the “information included in the email is not correct”.

However, no answer was forthcoming when asked to clarify which part was incorrect.

The Lands Ministry and the Office of the Prime Minister did not reply to questions.