[WATCH] Ministers to university’s rescue: ‘as necessary as sewage treatment plant’

Ministers dismiss opposition's university proposals • Video by Ray Attard

Environment minister Leo Brincat and education minister Evarist Bartolo today insisted that the proposed construction of a private university at Zonqor in Marsascala was as “necessary” as the nearby sewage treatment plant.

In a hastily arranged press conference outside the Ta’ Barkat plant, the ministers said that the plant was constructed in an Outside Development Zone under the previous administration.

Challenged on whether they were putting the sewage treatment plant on the same level as the proposed university, Brincat said they were not criticising the construction of the plant and attracting a private university was as necessary as the plant. 

On his part Bartolo said that government was in talks with other foreign universities over the possibility of setting up new campuses in Malta.

Moreover, the ministers dismissed the opposition’s proposed alternative sites explaining that the former St Luke’s hospital site is out of the question following the public private partnership agreement signed earlier this year, the former Dowty site in Mriehel has been earmarked for an manufacturing zone and the former petroleum division site in Has-Saptan would take years to be converted.