When Infrastructure Malta descended on a Dingli alley last year to pave a road through rural land, owners were shocked as they had not yet been informed that their fields were being expropriated.
It was only after a second attempt by the state agency to start work on the new road, stalled once again by activists, residents and farmers, that the expropriation process had kicked off.
Accounts given by landowners across the country suggest that is typical of the way Infrastructure Malta goes about expropriating land.
The proposed Dingli road had initially attracted environmental protests in October 2020, when workers turned up in Daħla tas-Sienja to connect it to San Ġwann Bosco Street.
Infrastructure Malta tried to resume work on March 22 this year but it was only eight days later that the agency officially announced the works in The Malta Government Gazette and it took another two weeks for the expropriation notice to be published, on April 12.
The expropriation notice published on April 12.How does expropriation work?
Expropriation is a forced acquisition of private land by the government for a public purpose. Compensation is due to the expropriated owner.
According to lawyer Claire Bonello, lawful land expropriation kicks off with a notice in The Malta Government Gazette after three architects value the land and the Lands Authority then decides on compensation.
However, some government agencies, namely Infrastructure Malta, try to circumvent this requirement by entering into an agreement with landowners, she said.
“This agreement does not guarantee protection to the landowners as the value of the land quoted by IM would not have been verified by the Lands Authority,” Bonello contended.
“In fact, there is no guarantee that the compensation cited by IM is the same as that given by Lands Authority – in some cases it may be even lower.
“There have also been instances where work kicked off without such an agreement in place while in other cases the agreement is not adhered to and the authorities expropriate more land than originally promised.”
Owners who spoke to Times of Malta claimed that work on their land started before the expropriation process kicked off while activists are aware that some have waited for months – even years – to be compensated.
Expropriation issues widespread
Expropriation issues are not limited to Dingli but seem widespread.
In one such case, the expropriation process only kicked off after owners of fields and a farmhouse on Mdina Road, off Rabat and Attard, asked the courts to intervene and successfully obtained an injunction stopping IM from continuing work on their property.
Frank Calleja woke up one day to find IM machinery on his property as the agency had started work linked to the Central Link project. He had not been officially informed of any plans by the government to expropriate the land.
In the application, the Callejas, through their lawyers, Matthew Cutajar and Eve Borg Costanzi, expressed concern that the area also included a historic farmhouse that was meant to be disassembled and rebuilt stone by stone elsewhere under the guidance of the Superintendent of Cultural Heritage.
In its decision, the court noted that “although appreciating the magnitude of the project, the owners’ property rights cannot be ignored. The country’s laws acknowledge the state’s right to expropriate private land when this is in the public’s interest, however, this should not be done to the detriment of existent procedures that protect individual’s rights.”
Following the prohibitory injunction, the government published its intention to expropriate the land in its gazette and the process kicked off.
However, the owners are still waiting to be compensated, Times of Malta is informed.
In another case, in Għeriexem, Rabat, the expropriation notice was published in 2019, with work starting late in 2020.
However, it was only two weeks ago that the Lands Authority sent a form to the farmers to register as proprietors of the expropriated land.
In the meantime, IM works continued on-site, taking up more land than originally announced.
Their lawyer, Maria Azzopardi, said that this particular land was taken up to widen the belvedere in the area, not the street.
The expropriation notice for the additional land has not yet been published in The Malta Government Gazette and the farmers have not been contacted to kick off the process.
In Żabbar, a family of rural landowners was called for a meeting with Infrastructure Malta in January, as work started on a road linking the Bieb is-Sultan and Alessio Erardi streets.
They were asked to agree to having their land expropriated. However, they were not told how much they would be compensated for the land.
One of the owners told this newspaper that, when asked for valuation of the land, IM told them “there will be compensation”.
Four months later, the expropriation process has not yet kicked off, despite workers turning up on-site to continue with the works through his field.