Public transport to stop at 8 p.m.

Bus owners decided last night that public transport on most routes will stop running at 8 p.m. as from today in support of their claim for a Lm1.7 million state subsidy.

The Public Transport Association said only routes 11, 19, 22, 45, 48, 49, 62 and 70 will continue running as usual. The service will not be affected during the weekend either.

The association also announced it was suspending route 75, the direct bus service linking towns and villages to St Luke's Hospital, as from tomorrow. However, the route from Valletta to the hospital will operate as usual, PTA president Victor Spiteri said.

Mr Spiteri said it had also been decided that as from Tuesday a total of 40 PTA employees would be dismissed gradually.

Earlier this week, the government said it would not budge from the Lm1.1 million offer it had made.

Reacting to the association's threat to lay off employees, a spokesman for the Ministry for Urban Development and Roads yesterday evening said "the government has already made clear its position over this matter through the Malta Transport Authority."

The spokesman also said that "in a letter to the PTA yesterday, the government explained that the Lm1.1 million subsidy offer already included the expenses incurred to cover the employees' wages.

"Therefore, the laying off of the employees would directly lead to a reduction in the subsidy offer," the spokesman said.

Bus owners had come close to a bus strike in the first week of July over the subsidies issue. Action, however, was suspended after the parties accepted the intervention of two mediators.

The PTA and the government had agreed last October to negotiate a sum which would close that financial year, pending a revamp of the system with which state subsidies were being handed over to bus operators.

A radical reform of the service had been in the pipeline for over a year. But since the revamp had been delayed last year, the PTA had proposed that subsidies for 2005 should be negotiated before talks on the reform start.

The Roads Ministry said earlier this week bus owners had been asking for a rise even though their income had increased considerably following the 5c increase in fares since last January.

"The increase meant that the PTA's income rose by Lm1.5 million," the government said, adding that bus owners' income from tickets was expected to go up from the Lm5 million last year to Lm6.5 million by the end of this year.

"The PTA is claiming that it requires Lm8.1 million to operate the route bus services, which was equivalent to a gross income of about Lm16,000 for each bus - an increase of Lm2,200 over bus owners' gross income for 2004."

According to the government's proposal, bus owners would get a gross payment of Lm14,800 for this year - Lm1,000 more than last year's.

Apart from these subsidies, the government had forked out Lm120,000 a year to partly cover bus insurance.