Austin Gatt on electricity tariffs, public transport reform

The Infrastructure Minister regrets the way the water and electricity saga has turned out and with hindsight, would have done things differently.

He said when he was being interviewed by di-ve editor Vanessa MacDonald that the new tariffs should have been introduced on January 1, rather than in October, following discussions which should have started at that point.

In October, the government should have increased the surcharge to 195 percent although this would have meant having a surcharge that was 10 percent higher than the tariffs.

The minister said that although the demand for oil was lower this year, its prices were still going up.

He noted that for the first time Malta has seen a drop in demand in electricity. He blamed his party for taking so long to introduce the necessary changes.

Dr Gatt said that the priority was to close the Marsa power station hopefully by 2012 and although the island would never be completely dependent on gas, the aim was to meet EU emission standards by 2015.

The minister also spoke on public transport saying discussions were currently being held with the Public Transport Association on compensation for bus owners in view of the forthcoming reform.

Employees in the sector, he said, would have to be taken on by whoever won the tender and the government was hoping to reach an agreement with the ATP to buy 140 buses to be used in the new system. He said he was not against local bus owners setting up their own company to bid in the tender but public transport would not be nationalised

The country, he said, could not have a system the standard of which was lower than in EU countries. Usage of private transport in Malta, the minister said, was 80 percent against the European average of 40 percent.

The government, he said, listened to everyone but it had to take decisions. Some decisions, such as that on the new Ghadira Road, were tough. It would be easy for the government not to take action it but it would do whatever was permitted by the Malta Environment and Planning Authority.

The minister also said that by the end of next year, all pedestriansed streets in Valletta should be paved.

He said there was a system where if one damaged his car because of the road conditions, one could claim. There were thousands of such claims.

Dr Gatt noted that the real problem was not the patching of problematic areas but the reconstruction of roads from scratch.

A very good number of roads were constructed on compacted soil with very little foundations so started to collapse within a few years.

While the government currently spent €30 million to €35 million a year on roads, to do them properly, it would have to spent €50 million to €55 million a year.

It was important to look deeply into the situation and provide contractors with more certainty to encourage them to invest in state of the art equipment.

Currently, they had no security, so it did not pay them to invest in machinery.