Updated | Labour raises questions over lease of Civil Protection facilities to security firm

Adds the government's statement at 6:10pm

The Labour Party spokesperson on home affairs Michael Falzon announced that the government has leased the Civil Protection Department fire-fighting facilities in Hal Far to a private company.

He described the decision as "irresponsible" and explained that the CDP will now have to rent out the facilities to hold training.

Falzon said that decision was taken without the consent of the department's management and added that it is ludicrous to have a Civil Protection Department with no place of its own for fire-fighting training.

He added that the facilities were rented out to an "established security firm" however did not wish to name the company. However, in October, MaltaToday revealed that International Safety Training Centre Ltd, a subsidiary of Alberta Holdings, was allowed to make use of the Civil Protection Department's facilities in Hal Far in return for the free training CPD personnel. 

Falzon also spoke about the situation in the police corps and said "recent events have raised a lot of doubts on the police."

While praising the police corps for its work, Falzon referred to the cases involving two police officers Adrian Lia and Jeffrey Cilia. "All officers should be treated equally and nobody should benefit from immunity in the forces."

Lia resigned from the corps after being accused of stealing €30,000 in cash from the police headquarters and is also involved in the Nicholas Azzopardi case. Lia was one of the officers who escorted and interrogated Azzopardi shortly before he allegedly fell three storeys down at the police headquarters.

Lia had also lied about saving a woman at sea and the medal of honour he was awarded was later withdrawn.

Falzon insisted that action should have been taken and repeat offenders should not be allowed to stay on.

On the Nicholas Azzopardi case which has recently hit the headlines again after the revelations on Lia, the former Labour Party deputy-leader expressed his personal opposition to the decision by the Attorney General to hand over the re-opened inquiry to Antonio Vella who had led the original magisterial inquiry.

"In my personal opinion it would have been better had a different magistrate been chosen to head the inquiry," Falzon said.

On the Ghar Hasan incident last Friday, when a migrant was shot by a police officer, Falzon asked whether the protocols on how policemen should act in such cases are followed and updated.

On the situation in the Corradino prison, Falzon said "it is out of control." He stressed that he cannot call the prison a correctional facility. He explained that the allocated funds for training and educational programmes for inmates have been cut down to €40,000 from €50,000. "This works out to just over €66 per prisoner," Falzon explained.

He also said that a retired manager at the prisons has been awarded a consultancy job for 30 hours a week with a remuneration of €20,000, which Falzon said "works out at half the budget for education and training."

Falzon said the situation in home affairs is "very transparent because the minister (Carm Mifsud Bonnici) in invisible. There is no sense of leadership or accountability," Falzon said.

Speaking about recent calls for a police trade union, Falzon explained that  eight foreign police associations had written to Mifsud Bonnici criticising his proposals on the unionisation of the police force. He reiterated Labour's position in favour of the "limited" unionisation of the police forces, the AFM and the CPD.

In reaction to Labour's press conference, the government denied that the CPD transferred land or entered into a contract to transfer land. The government added that it never involved itself in any transaction of this type.

In regards to the Nicholas Azzopardi and Adrian Lia case, the Home Affairs Ministry said the necessary action was taken, and the Opposition knows that in the case of Lia, the judgements were not given by the ministry but by the courts.

The ministry also denied that the fund for educational programmes at the Corradino prison was reduced but on the contrary, the funds for 2012 increased to €45,000.

On the police union proposal, the ministry said the proposal was tabled in Parliament and a bill was published in the Government Gazette last November.