I’ve watched the episode of Il-Każin featuring Alex Borg in which the project of Fort Chambray was discussed. I noted something very interesting about the programme on how the government has chosen to play its PR with regard to the project. The government refused to send its representative to the programme leaving Alex Borg to take the most of the programme’s airtime during which he defended the government’s project of Fort Chambray. Alex Borg as an Opposition member, spent the whole programme defending a government project.
This is not to exclude the fact that the government can do things for which it can be applauded for but you have to got be incredibly naïve to fail to realise what it is happening in this case. Alex Borg is defending the government’s most controversial project in Gozo and his arguments say quite clearly that his position on economic policy is exactly the same as that of the government.
Alex Borg lied to the public when he said that restoration works of Fort Chambray will be funded by the private developer – this is not true and Alex Borg was ordered by the Standards Commissioner to apologise for this statement. He still defends his position and denies he was lying citing a cap of up to €6 million that the developer has to fork out in restoration works. However, the contract states that the majority of the restoration expenses will be forked out by the government.
Alex Borg also defends the project in principle. He says that the project is needed to help Malta and Gozo bring more quality tourists: the government’s support of private businesses to develop luxury hotels in exchange for land concessions has been applied already by the government in numerous cases including at Pembroke where DB will build its new hotel. Alex Borg also defended the government’s aid model through land concession by saying that the developer takes a risk with their investment.
The developers at Fort Chambray will build up to 105 high-end apartments. They got the land basically for free and won’t be paying more than €6 million in restoration expenses with the government forking out the majority of the expenses. The developers will be actually taking much less risk had they done the project without government help because they are basically being granted Gozo’s most prime real-estate area location for free.
As a politician, to defend, speculation risk in an ever booming property market while the country is going through a housing is either naïve, stupid or downright deceiving. I don’t understand what he has in mind here Alex Borg. He insists he has not been paid to defend the Fort chambray project but he speaks as if he is a promoter for the real-estate industry. What also surprises me is that Alex Borg has defended the government’s contract over Fort Chambray in full and didn’t even allocate some of his time to express some critical comments.
For example, he could have said that in principle, the project is positive, but the government should have asked the contractors for the full payment of the restoration works. Instead, Alex Borg goes on about the “risk” that these contractors will be taking.
I find all of this very strange and I don’t think that Alex Borg is telling the full truth about this issue. It’s also the first time ever that I have seen a Nationalist Party MP being so defensive over a government project without even putting forward some critcism.
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