Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/523863
maltatoday, SUNDAY, 7 JUNE 2015 News 9 CONTINUES PAGE 1 BUT the chro- nology of events may show oth- erwise. On 17 May 2013, Gaffarena bought a two-storey Sliema town- house on 74, Manwel Dimech Street for just €72,000 – quite a catch for a prominent location in an urban conservation zone. Then on 10 April 2015, the gov- ernment granted him in com- pensation the shop numbered 73, Manwel Dimech Street, un- derlying the house he bought. The GPD valued the shop at just €65,000, because it was not a free- hold property and still under a temporary emphyteusis that will expire in 2016. A month later on 6 May 2015, Gaffarena applied with MEPA to demolish the townhouse and shop for the construction of five ga- rages, 10 apartments spread over four levels, and a penthouse. An application for this development was rejected in 2012 after MEPA's Heritage Advisory Committee ob- jected to the application. Clearly, the GPD obliged Gaf- farena in offering under-valued property that would increase the value of his existing property and future development – a million- euro property jackpot. Gaffarena was also extending his business interests. With the same family that sold him the Sliema house, on 4 May 2015 he started buying off their shares of an old 1878 lease for the land on which Mark & Spencers currently stands on the Sliema Strand. The 150-year lease will expire in 2028, but Gaffarena has so far acquired a 1/40 share of the land for €3,500, and another 3/40 share for €10,000. On Thursday, Michael Falzon again told MaltaToday: "As re- peatedly stated there was no po- litical intervention in this, or in any other transaction. The Gov- ernment Property Department's architect/s acted in their own pro- fessional capacity and without any direction of whatever sort." He also insisted that the par- liamentary secretariat does not interfere in GPD's daily running. "All the normal legal and adminis- trative rules and regulations were duly observed by the GPD," Fal- zon said. But departmental sources have told MaltaToday that Gaffarena was seen at the Lands Department offices in the company of a mem- ber of Falzon's parliamentary sec- retariat. Clint Scerri, a member of Fal- zon's secretariat, would neither confirmed nor deny this when contacted by MaltaToday, When asked point blank why he had accompanied Gaffarena at the Lands Department, a hesitant Scerri asked: "which time are you referring to?" Pressed to explain why he was at the Lands Department with Gaf- farena in recent months, Scerri said "no comment". Asked whether he denied being at the Lands Department with the developer, Scerri repeated that he did not wish to comment. At the time of going to print, no answers were forthcoming from Falzon on whether he will request an investigation into the possible leak of sensitive information to Gaffarena. Falzon also failed to answer whether he was concerned with the series of coincidences in the expropriation of the Old Mint Street building, and how the lands given to Gaffarena had been se- lected and valued. On Monday, Falzon told jour- nalists that the transaction was a completely regular one and that no criminal investigation was nec- essary. "The only reason it made the news was because of his sur- name," Falzon said of Gaffarena. Gaffarena is a well-known spon- sor of a number of Labour candi- dates, especially in the sixth and seventh electoral districts, and a petrol pump station he owns in Qormi is associated with a number of illegalities that were recently sanctioned by the Labour administration. JAMES DEBONO JOSEPH Gaffarena, the father of Marco Gaffarena, has applied to construct a four-storey high old people's home in an afforested area outside development zones in Birgu. The development, which is be- ing proposed over a 2,770 square metre site, would be located in the vicinity of the protected Tal- Hawli valley in Triq San Dwardu and Triq Guzeppi Decelis near the Fortini secondary school. The application, which is still being screened by the Malta Envi- ronment and Planning Authority was presented by Prof. Mark Brin- cat on behalf of St Paul Residential Homes Limited, which is owned by Joseph Gaffarena. Labour MP Charles Buhagiar is listed as "project architect" in the plans submitted to MEPA. Bu- hagiar is government-appointed chairman of the Building Industry Consultative Council – the Val- letta offices of which only recently belonged in part to Mark Gaffare- na, and for whom a €1.65 million expropriation deal is now a matter of national controversy and NAO investigation. The application was filed in Sep- tember 2013 and Buhagiar sub- mitted fresh plans to MEPA on 22 May 2015. In 1992, MEPA had refused an application to erect garages and stores on the site presently ear- marked for the development of the old people's home. But in 1997 the authority issued a permit to Joseph Gaffarena's son Marco, to erect a maisonette and a garage over a small part of the site. A map included in the Grand Harbour Local Plan approved in 2002 designates the site as one of scientific and ecological impor- tance: the area includes almond, carob and olive trees, prickly pears, peach and fig trees, vines, and trees of heaven and oleanders. In the application the developers acknowledged that the develop- ment would result in the uproot- ing of a number of trees and the demolition or alteration of existing rubble walls. The land in question is fully owned by Joseph Gaffarena. MEPA is currently consider- ing two ODZ applications for old people's homes: Gaffarena's land in Birgu and a four-storey home across 4,472 square metres of ODZ land along Luqa Road, in Santa Lu- cija. The architect of the Santa Lu- cija application is Robert Sarsero, a member of MEPA's Environment and Planning Review Tribunal. Gaffarena wants ODZ old people's home in Birgu apartments over Sliema property Marco Gaffarena applied on 6 May 2015 to build 10 apartments in Sliema. The €65,000 shop was part of the government compensation he got in January, after first buying the house back in 2013 for just €72,000 The ODZ land in Birgu where Joseph Gaffarena wants to construct an old people's home Marco Gaffarena Clint Scerri