The deal was wrong in and of itself – it couldn’t have “been done better”

In this report in Times of Malta, Michael Falzon also says that “the government acquired half a palace of great value which also had a unique wooden ceiling”.

Has a wooden ceiling, I would say, as I imagine the ceiling is still there otherwise Falzon wouldn’t be showing off about it.

This is fascinating insight into his attitude. Falzon seems to think that it is the business of government to set about acquiring real estate for its investment portfolio.

The purpose of the expropriation law is to make it possible for the government to acquire land or buildings for its own use when it is in extremis and cannot do otherwise. The way the expropriation law has been abused over the last few decades has made us forget it. In simple terms, if the government needs office buildings, it should rent them and not expropriate them from private owners.

This is the situation at present. That building in Old Mint Street is on lease to the government until 2028. The spirit of the expropriation law, and good sense, tells us that when 2026 rolls round, the government should start looking for other offices to rent and begin planning to vacate the building in Old Mint Street in 2028, allowing the owners (by which I don’t mean the speculating Gaffarena) to retake possession of it after having been deprived of its use for a century.

Instead, the government has expropriated half of it and Michael Falzon is selling the idea as a good investment. How is it a good investment? The government does not exist to build up a property portfolio while privatising, say, the provision of electricity and failing to rationalise the use of buildings it owns already.