Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1385129
16 maltatoday | SUNDAY • 20 JUNE 2021 NEWS PRELIMINARY MARKET CONSULTATION MALTESE SPELLING AND GRAMMAR CHECKER SOLUTION AND RELATED SERVICES The purpose of this Preliminary Market Consultation (PMC) is to identify potential Solutions and the avaiability of Economic Operators who are able to provide a Maltese Spelling and Grammar Checker solution. For more information visit etenders.gov.mt TENDER ID: MHAL/01/2021 Interested parties are to submit their bid via the e-tenders portal by not ater than 30/06/2021 12:00 C M Y CM MY CY CMY K Spell Checker 1.pdf 1 27/05/2021 08:14 PAUL COCKS A mediation process is current- ly underway between the Sap- port agency and the contractor entrusted with the stalled disa- bility 'hub' in Naxxar. Naxxar residents and the lo- cal council were given no ex- planation as to why works on the village for disabled persons had ground to a halt over 18 months ago and has since been abandoned. The €32 million Reach project had to be built next to the for- mer trade fair grounds: four de- tached blcoks of 78 residential units, a 26-room hostel, a com- munity building, restaurant and retail outlets, and therapy centre and underground car park. The hub is intended for persons with a disability living on site. The project was given the green light in December 2017 and the tender was awarded to Bonnici Brothers of Bur- marrad. Excavations started in 2019, but ground to a halt by December that same year, with the site left untouched since then. Despite numerous attempts to find out why the work stopped and when it will re- sume, or if the project will now be completed, the local council is still without answers. Exec- utive secretary Paul Gatt told MaltaToday it as in the dark. "We keep asking what is go- ing on, but we get nowhere," he said. "We've had no contact whatsoever and not even Aġen- zija Sapport has been in touch with us." It is also unclear if excava- tion works are even completed, with no explanation given as to why mounds of inert waste left on site for months. A spokesman for Julia Far- rugia Portelli, minister for in- clusion and social wellbeing under whose remit the project falls, said it will refrain from comment "not to prejudice" talks between Sapport and the contractor. Yet questions from this newspaper sent to Sap- port were not answered, and attempts to contact Bonnici Brothers proved futile. Objections to project The project goes back to 2016, when Justyne Caruana was parliamentary secretary at the time. In 2017 objectors argued that the development would make an already bad traf- fic problem even worse and that the project was not fit for the area. Even the Commission for the Rights of Persons with Disabil- ity had opposed the project in, mentioning its objections in its four-year report to the United Nations in criticism of the gov- ernment's implementation of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disability. Critics said the concept of a hub for disabled persons would distance them from the rest of the community, going directly against provisions of the Equal Opportunities Act and CRPD guidelines recommending they "not be physically segregated." Questions to Sapport The agency which should be pushing for the resumption of the works failed to answer ques- tions from MaltaToday which asked: when did works at the REACH hub last take place? Has excavation been com- pleted? Have the contractors filed any complaint concerning the removal of inert waste? Is the project still slated for com- pletion as initially approved or have plans changed? What is the cost of works to date on the project? What is the new com- pletion date for this project? Reach is hole in the ground as mediation underway Mediation underway 18 months after works on Naxxar disability hub ground to a halt