The Ministry for Gozo said this evening that it had planned to carry out the rebuilding of the road between Victoria and Xlendi during the winter, but the project was delayed by tender procedures and the work was now being carried out in the summer so as to ensure that EU deadlines, and funding, were not lost.

The ministry was reacting to a Labour Party statement which said that the timing of the work meant that the ministry gave more importance to the interests of the contractor, than the country.

The ministry said the project was delayed because the call for tenders was issued twice after the bids in the first call were unsatisfactory. There had also been an appeal after the winning bidder was announced, but the government decision was upheld.

The ministry said it would have been far better had the opposition welcomed a project such as this, which was being carried out in the interests of all the people and tourists.

The ministry said that alternative routes had been prepared for those people who wished to go to Xlendi.

It insisted that all tenders in Gozo were awarded transparently in line with public procurement regulations.

PL statement

The Labour Party said in the morning that the programme of works for the rebuilding of Xlendi road was tailored to meet the needs of the contractor, not the country.

The works were taken in hand this week and continue until October.

The PL said such a timetable was detrimental to the tourism industry.

"The government knows that Xlendi is dead during the winter but comes back to life in June. But for the Ministry of Gozo and the government, the interests of the contractor come before the bread and butter of the tourist sector in Xlendi," the party said.

It said that the work was to be carried out by Road Construction Ltd, which had been awarded many other contracts by the ministry. This contractor linked up with another contractor to form JPF Joint Venture for the €1.5m Xlendi Road project.

The contractor was also involved in another joint venture which is rebuilding the road to Ta' Pinu and, the PL said, it was clear that machinery would be transferred from Ta' Pinu to Xlendi once work on the former was completed in the coming weeks.

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