Labour: always corrupt and into cronyism and nepotism

Times of Malta reported yesterday that the historic Fort San Salvatore cannot be used as the location for a ‘the American University of Malta’ – it has been suggested as an alternative site to Zonqor Point – unless it is bought back from ex Prime Minister Dom Minister’s brother, Raymond, who owns it.

The news that Raymond Mintoff owns a historic fort comes as a surprise to many. Given the extent of Mintoff’s corruption and cronyism, and his contempt for historic places, why it should come as a surprise is anybody’s guess.

Prime Minister Mintoff gave the fort – which was public property – on leasehold to Prestressed Concrete Ltd, a company owned by his brother, to be used as a batching plant, in 1958, just a month before his government resigned. Back then, it was common knowledge that Prestressed Concrete Ltd in reality belonged to the prime minister himself, and was fronted by his brother. Dom Mintoff was one of the architects most heavily involved in post-war construction, which is how he made his first batch of money.

The 1958 deed which turned the fort over to the company was produced in parliament yesterday. The terms were a mere ground rent of £100, payable to the Treasury in advance every six months.

In 1982, when Mintoff was prime minister yet again, his brother Raymond bought the freehold of the fort from the government for just Lm2,000 (€4,650) and so acquired full title to it.

Now here’s a note which you will not find in Times of Malta’s report. The year Prime Minister Mintoff gave Fort San Salvatore to his brother Raymond, he also demanded the return of the keys to the Red Tower in Mellieha from my grandfather and the immediate evacuation of the place on the grounds that historic forts should not be in private use and the tower was required for “a public purpose”. My grandfather and one of his brothers had held it on leasehold for many years and used it as a summer house, and my father and his sister spent every summer there while growing up.

They duly complied, moved out and returned the keys to the government. The Red Tower in Mellieha, which they had carefully maintained over the years, was never used again and fell into serious despair, its original drawbridge disappearing and every accessible part of it vandalised, until Din L-Art Helwa restored it almost half a century later.