Updated | Lands Department staff finds police at Auberge de Baviere

Lands Department workers and Government Property Department staff have found police officers inside the central yard of the Auberge de Baviere offices in Valletta, as the Commissioner of Police prepares to take charge of the stalled operations at the beleagured offices.

GPD employees told MaltaToday that this morning they went to work as usual, only to find police officers standing guard inside and outside the premises. The GPD is closed to the public. By noon, workers were still standing by, awaiting further instructions.

Prime Minister Joseph Muscat yesterday announced that the Commissioner had been asked to increase surveillance and security at the Lands Department where sensitive documents pertaining to the Gaffarena expropriation deal, which yesterday cost the position of parliamentary secretary Michael Falzon, are held.

He also announced that the department would be overhauled and become an authority. “In the meantime, while all the necessary legal provisions are taken to clean up this mess, I have given instructions to immediately suspend the transfer of government-owned land by sale, rent or emphyteusis.”

Transfers of land falling under existing or accepted schemes will however go ahead and payments deriving from rentals, emphyteusis and research will also be accepted as normal.

Judge Lawrence Quintano was appointed to lead an interim board to oversee the transitional period. The board will also include two experienced civil servants, Joseph Caruana and Nancy Caruana. Moreover, a public consultation process will be launched in the coming days, aimed at improving the management of land by an new “autonomous” authority which will have a governing body made up of representatives appointed by the Opposition and “other entities”.