Transport watchdog yet to apportion responsibility in road collapse

The Malta Transport Authority (ADT) is still not in a position to apportion responsibility for the collapse of St Paul's Bay bypass, six years after the section of the road adjacent to Polidano Brothers' illegally excavated plot subsided.

The Times has reported that the damage has not been officially quantified.

The ADT's chief executive, Gianfranco Selvaggi, now says that the authority is not even in a position to say who is responsible for the 2000 collapse. "I am not in a position (to say who is responsible) before I have the (results of the) tests in hand."

The tests he referred to are geophysical assessments which the authority believes will prove "scientifically" whether the road collapsed as a result of over-excavation that started back in 2000.

The government will have to foot the bill for the repairs should the tests not link a mudslide that occurred last January to the extensive excavations by the developer. The incident had prompted an inquiry into how the Malta Environment and Planning Authority (Mepa) handled the illegal excavations by Polidano Brothers on the plot over a five-year period.

In the wake of the mudslide, a meeting was held between the developer and the architect responsible for the road, Mario Ellul.

Mr Ellul told The Times that during the meeting the developer said he would build the retaining wall only if Mepa issues a permit for development.

Polidano Brothers has failed to comment on the matter despite repeated requests by The Times.

The entire bypass has sustained significant structural damage over the years, primarily as a consequence of the clay bed it rests upon. In fact, the collapsed section of the bypass forms part of the second phase of the €6 million partly EU-funded reconstruction of the bypass.

Nonetheless, the former roads department director Lino Zammit - then responsible for the issue - is on record saying in 2001, shortly after the first collapse, that "the road subsided after contractors, working some six storeys down, over-excavated the land. "The over-excavations and the high clay content of the land," he had said, "caused the land between the road and the private property to subside."

Moreover, some months after this statement was made, according to a note in the Mepa inquiry into the matter, a meeting was held between the Attorney General, Polidano Brothers and the ADT. At the meeting, Polidano is said to have agreed to apply for a permit to build a retaining structure along with a residential unit.

"A major step forward had been made at the meeting...," a letter quoted in the Xemxija report says. "It was agreed that Polidano Ltd would submit an application for the development of the site so that the new construction itself would buttress the ground adjacent to the road."

On top of this, however, Mr Ellul had said that the continued excavations on the site carried out by Polidano along the clay slope could "cause further damage to the road".

Since 2000, the Roads Department became an authority - the ADT, and the administration changed. Mr Selvaggi says he checked the authority's files in connection with the case and found no decisive proof that the developer assumed responsibility for the road collapse. "The authority's notes of the meeting with the Attorney General are not clear especially in the aspect dealing with responsibility."

However, Mr Selvaggi admitted that the authority had not looked into the letter referred to in the report. "We will look into it," he said when pressed on the fact that the note could indicate that the developer had assumed responsibility for the mudslide almost from the beginning.

"Believe me, we will apportion the blame and demand that the damage is fixed but we have to have proof," Mr Selvaggi insisted, "especially because we are talking of big sums of money here."

An estimate of the costs in connection with the structure needed to shore up the road and reconstruct the damaged section has not been made officially yet. But Mr Ellul expects the bill to exceed Lm500,000.

Preliminary rehabilitation of the site, according to Mepa, is being carried out by the developer in line with established specifications. However, both Mepa and the ADT agree that these works have nothing to do with the work required to fix the road.