Lm26m roads improvement plan
Much preparatory work already carried out
About Lm14 million from the Malta-EU financial package of Lm81 million would be spent on upgrading the road network in Malta and Gozo in the first three years of membership, Transport Minister Censu Galea said yesterday.
Some Lm12 million of the Lm30 million in financial assistance of the protocol with Italy would also be spent on the road network in the first three years after ratification of the protocol.
A number of arterial roads and junctions around Malta would be rebuilt from scratch, widened or reconstructed with funds from the EU and the Italian protocol, he said at a news conference at the Malta Transport Authority's offices in Sa Maison.
The government's programme for the construction of roads and upgrading is estimated to cost around Lm100 million.
Mr Galea said the authority had carried out a considerable amount of preparatory work in relation to the projects which would be financed through the Italian protocol.
"We are pre-planning to have everything ready so that when the Italian government ratifies the protocol, we would not waste any time in preliminary work but be in a position to start right away with construction work," Mr Galea said.
As for the EU-backed road network upgrade, Mr Galea said the authority had already embarked on the preliminary work on the so-called Transport Infrastructure Needs Assessment (TINA) Routes, a study carried out and funded by the EU as part of the pre-accession process.
The report established that Maltese arterial roads, ports and the airport should be considered as forming part of the Trans-European Network (TEN-T) and should receive direct aid of up to 80 per cent to upgrade or to reconstruct them. The TINA report was published a year ago.
Mr Galea said preparatory planning works as well as environmental impact assessment studies are currently being carried out for the Marsaxlokk-Cirkewwa route in Malta and the Mgarr to Victoria route in Gozo.
He said that statistics published by the EU earlier this week showed that out of all the applicant countries, Malta was the most successful beneficiary of EU pre-accession funds.
The two road network programmes incorporate 90 kilometres of roads.
When referred to the long overdue works on the Burmarrad and Salini roads, Mr Galea said he now expected work on the Burmarrad/Targa Gap road to be completed by the end of this month.
Thereafter, more emphasis would be placed on the road leading from Naxxar to Salina.
He also issued a cautionary note to contractors: "Stricter measures need to be taken to bind contractors to specific datelines and if questions are to be made and matters cleared, they should be made at the tendering stage".