Falzon denies political responsibility over Gaffarena expropriation

Planning parliamentary secretary Michael Falzon insisted that he was not politically responsible for the controversial expropriation of half a Valletta building from entrepeneur Marco Gaffarena.

"Even [Opposition leader] Simon Busuttil had said in parliament that I didn't receive any money through the expropriation," Falzon said in response to questions posed by journalists at the end of a press conference marking the launch of Mepa's new design policy document. 

"Moreover, I always paid for the cars that I bought, I never had CCTV cameras installed at my house for free, I always paid for works, and I always declared my full income," he said, in reference to former health minister Joe Cassar who resigned from Parliament last week following revelations by MaltaToday that he had failed to declare over €8,000 in free house works paid for by Gaffarena.

An inquiry by the OPM's internal audit and investigations department found that lands granted to Gaffarena as part of the expropriation deal were in excess of a 30% legal ceiling that such valuations cannot exceed.

When asked who should shoulder responsibility for this illegality, Falzon said that the full report hasn't been published, but that the valuations were carried out "as transparently as possible".

"When people want to discover the value of a property before deciding whether to purchase it or not, do they seek the advice of an architect or a lawyer?

"The architect who valued the lands was the dean of the university's Faculty of the Built Environment [Joseph Spiteri], a person who lectures in land valuation, so I don't know how the process could have been more transparent," he said

He insisted that he wasn't involved in the selection of Spiteri as architect, and that he hadn't spoken to him at all about the valuation of lands granted to Gaffarena.