Mugliett questions government’s calculations on acquisition of MCP car park slots

Nationalist MP Jesmond Mugliett has resigned his seat on the National Audit Committee, a parliamentary committee of MPs which debate audits of major government decisions and acquisition, over his misgivings on government's rental of parking slots in the MCP car park extension.

Mugliett, a former transport minister, said he had resigned his seat after being offered "too simplistic an answer" over the calculations presented for government's acquisition of some 100 car park places in the Floriana multi-storey car park. The government recently granted an additional 65-year lease extension to the MCP park.

"I have no objections to extending the lease to 94 years, but the calculations presented to the committee are questionable," Mugliett said.

The MP, who will not be contesting the next elections apart from the fact that he was banned from recontesting on the PN ticket for abstaining on the Opposition's resignation motion against Richard Cachia Caruana, said he disagreed with the €3.2 million price for the government to acquire 100 parking slots in the new extension.

The MCP car park will be extended to eventually host a total 1,150 cars, 402 of which will be new car spaces. A resolution was presented in Parliament on 3 October to extend the lease of the car park by a further 65 years once the current one expires in 2041.

In presenting the resolution to the National Audit Committee, lands minister Jason Azzopardi explained that a parking lots acquired by government were being bought at the normal going rate of €600 per year for each space and arrived to the €3.2 million figure after taking into account discounted cash flow calculations.

Asked by MaltaToday whether he intends to take other measures in regards to this decision, Mugliett answered in the negative.

But Mugliett insisted that the price government will be paying for the parking slots was too high: "The discount rate used needs some real explanation."

He referred to similar objections he had raised when the same committee approved the exchange of land with GO plc. Recently, the former national telephone company GO plc declared it made a gain of €11.4 million in a deal with the Maltese government, which gave the Dubai-owned telecommunications firm eleven telephone exchanges valued at €13.8 million, in return for a parcel of land in Qawra owned by former national telecoms company Maltacom, which was valued at €2.4 million.

Mugliett said the figures presented to the committee proved to be incorrect and his requests to have the vote on the exchange of land with GO plc postponed were accepted but the deal was still approved by Parliament.

The operator of the MCP car park is contractually obliged to invest €5 million in the new project, rent out 100 out of the 402 new spaces to government for public sector employees at a minimal annual fee, maintain the public garden planned to be built on top of the car park at street level at Environment Landscape Consortium (ELC) standards, but cannot offer retail outlet services except for a car valeting service or sports facility such as a gymnasium.

As things stand, the duration of the lease is 50 years (which kick-started back in 1991) and expires in 2041. The current annual ground lease of €23,000, revised every 25 years (twice in 50 years), will rise to €200,000 annually and will be revised every 10 years.