Of all the contentious projects the current government has dreamed up since the beginning of its tenure back in 2013, we will posit that the Zonqor Point-American University of Malta project is the one that it most regrets.
At first, the government had the gall to offer the Jordanian university investors 90,000 square metres of virgin land at Zonqor Point. When all hell broke loose over the suggestion and when public outcry had reached a fever pitch, the Prime Minister deftly presented his 'compromise': the handover of 'just' 18,000 square metres at Zonqor Point, coupled with the handover of a substantial portion of the Senglea side of Dock 1.
This project, which saw the wholesale of virgin land in Marsascala being handed over to a private developer for no more than a pittance, may have eventually scaled down from the ODZ view point but it has also seen the surrender of historic buildings at Dock 1.
The project has undoubtedly been a thorn in the government's side since day one.
It saw environmentalists rise up against the sacrifice of Outside Development Zone land for what is a purely private educational business venture; it brought a whole new awareness to the term 'ODZ'; it saw the creation of the Front Ħarsien ODZ pressure group; it saw first one of its MPs and then another break ranks with the party, which, in turn, eventually led to the creation of a new third political party that made its way into a pair of parliamentary seats.
It has also seen the Opposition, under its previous leader, pledge to renegotiate and rescind the contract the government signed with the Jordanian developers if elected to power.
That, obviously, did not happen. But what did happen was that the party's new leader, just a few months into his own tenure, made good on his predecessor's pledge with the party filing a motion this week from the Opposition benches to reverse the transfer of the large plot of public land in Zonqor which leased to Jordanian investors for the construction of the American University of Malta.
The bid comes in the wake of confirmed reports that the AUM is failing miserably to meet the projected student intake it had promised.
The government, by way of the education minister, has said it has 'indicated' that work on the Zonqor campus should only begin once the Dock 1 campus was full. This, according to the governing Labour Party, rendered the Opposition's motion 'useless and premature'.
That is, however, far from the case as the issue is no longer in the government's control now that it has signed off on the deal.
Right from the get-go, the entire AUM debacle that the government foisted upon the country has been nothing short of an obscene charade. This has been nothing more than a purely private business venture that the government has, for one reason or another, attempted to package as an indispensible project for the benefit of the nation.
But at the end of the day, the project is nothing short of a pure business venture by a foreign company aimed at fee-paying and mostly foreign students. And apart from a handful of scholarships that will apparently be handed out to Maltese students to follow courses at this new institute, it is difficult to see how this educational project stands to improve the quality of life of the nation as a whole.
As matters stand, it is also difficult to determine whether the government was actually fooled by the Jordanian investors, the Sadeen Group, into believing that a top-notch university was being attracted to Malta, or if there are other factors at play.