Marsalforn garden stalls into legal threat

The government is considering legal action over stalled works at Ġnien it-Tliet Għoljiet in Marsalforn after the contractor failed to follow the agreed schedule, the Times of Malta reported from a parliamentary reply by Gozo Minister Clint Camilleri.

Camilleri said the contractor chosen through a public tender had breached its contractual obligations on the garden upgrade, leaving the project effectively frozen. He said the ministry was taking “all necessary measures”, including judicial action, to make the contractor honour its commitments.

What has been done so far is modest to the point of embarrassment: the minister said works have been limited to the removal of old material. He also said no expenditure has been incurred on the project to date.

That matters because this is not a scheme that disappeared into some early planning fog. The refurbishment has been promised, delayed, re-promised and delayed again in parliament over several years, while complaints about the garden’s condition kept returning. In October 2023, then opposition MP Chris Said warned that the state of the playground had become dangerous for children. Camilleri said tenders were being prepared and that refurbishment was planned for 2024.

That did not happen. By December 2024, Camilleri was still saying the tender was being vetted and would be published in early 2025. In June 2025, he said the tender was in its final stages and would be published within days. It was eventually issued in August 2025, with an estimated value of €147,140 excluding VAT.

The tender covered removal and disposal of existing playground equipment and safety surfacing, preparatory works and installation of new equipment and surfaces. Camilleri later announced that the tender outcome had been published on October 17, and a contract award notice followed in January.

Almost a year after the contractor was selected, the ministry’s public position is that the job has not moved beyond stripping out what was already there. The state can threaten court action if it wants, but the more basic question is why a garden that has been under public discussion since at least 2023 is still waiting for the phase where actual improvements become visible.

Camilleri’s reply did not give a revised completion date. It also did not say whether the original plans would still be carried out in full. That is the part official language tends to skate past: a breach is one problem, but residents still need to know what authority will do now, on what timetable, and whether the promised park survives the dispute intact.

Ġnien it-Tliet Għoljiet was inaugurated in August 2012 and cost about €1 million to develop, covering around 4,400 square metres. Fourteen years on, the government is back in parliament explaining why the replacement playground has not arrived.