ADPD condemns PL and PN on decades of complicity in Manoel Island deal

The Green Party accused both major parties of decades-long complicity with speculators over Manoel Island. During a press conference, Chairperson Sandra Gauci and Secretary General Ralph Cassar said PL and PN continue ignoring 29,000 petitioners’ demands to turn the island into a public park.

Gauci criticised both Prime Minister Robert Abela and Opposition Leader Bernard Grech for echoing MIDI’s stance and failing to act when the contract was breached. She argued that both parties enabled speculation over public land, fuelling rising property prices and limiting public green spaces.

Cassar added that the 2000 parliamentary decision to grant MIDI both Tigné and Manoel Island, supported unanimously by PL and PN, caused lasting damage. He called the current concern by former politicians like Alfred Sant “hypocritical,” stressing that real progress would have meant preserving land for public and cultural use, not luxury development.

ADPD reiterated that parliamentary petitions must carry weight, and called for accountability and a parliamentary debate on Manoel Island.

Ruth Zammit

News Editor
Journalist and Newscaster