There were a total of 391 applications submitted for the ‘Irrestawra darek’ scheme, Minister for Planning Stefan Zrinzo Azzopardi said on Monday.
In answering a parliamentary question by PN MP Graziella Galea, the minister said the scheme opened at the established time at mid-day. The scheme was launched on 30 of last May. The website where the applications were being received crashed a few minutes after the scheme opened, and when it came back up again, the scheme had already been oversubscribed.
In a reply to a question asked by this newsroom, the Minister had said that the only request that the Chamber of Architects made before the application accepting process started, was for the opening of the applications to be at 12pm rather than 8am as was originally planned. He added that the same document detailed how the system was to work on a first come first served basis, but the chamber had not complained about this.
The scheme was closed when it was over-subscribed. He said that the IT team received an influx of applications without any precedence.
In an earlier statement the chamber of architects said that the scheme wasted a full week of work of several architecture studios, with the risk that disappointed customers may blame their architects for their unsuccessful attempts at applying, rather than the preposterous application system adopted by the PA, and not pay them for their services.