Update 2: Muscat hits out at Park and Ride charges plan

Opposition leader Joseph Muscat this morning criticised the government for its plans to impose a charge for use of the Blata l-Bajda Park and Ride and said it would be a burden on the people, particularly those who needed to go to Valletta regularly.

Speaking during the Budget debate in parliament this morning, he asked the Prime Minister to say whether the Maltese government had sought clearance with the European Commission on the two-tier public transport tariff system, as every serious government would do before coming up with a new system. The fact that the European Commission had said it would look into the new system led one to wonder if any consultations with the EU had actually been made.

In a statement replying to these comments, the Transport Ministry said that Dr Muscat's comments showed that he wanted the Maltese to pay higher tariffs. For to lower tariffs for a category of people, it had to be increased for others. In this case, it would be the Maltese and Gozitans who used the buses regularly who would suffer.

The ministry said that through a simple internet search, the Opposition leader could have found that schemes reserved for residents existed in, among other towns, Helsinki - Finland, Seville - Spain, Tallinn - Estonia, Venice - Italy, Ireland, and in London, Northern Ireland and England in the UK.

The ministry also criticised Dr Muscat for his comments about the Park and Ride. This, the ministry said, was free of charge for the first year to give the people time to overcome skepticism to transport in a group. Now that the people has got used to the concept, it was only fair that those who did not use the high quality public transport service paid for their choice to continue using their own transport.

This was a universally accepted principle in traffic planning where serious problems, such as the dependence of the Maltese on private transport, which led to congestion, pollution and health problems, needed to be tackled.

Dr Muscat also reiterated a call he made on Monday for the government to publicly assure the public that the instructions given to IBM for the writing of the software for the billing of water and electricity tallied with what was laid down in the legal notice on the tariffs.

He said he had commented on this issue with a sense of responsibility, and the government owed it to the public to reply.

Turning to the pending debate in Parliament on a private motion by Jeffrey Pullicino Orlando for the introduction of divorce, Dr Muscat said that although this debate is due to be held in January, the government should explain the procedure which would be followed and not bring the issue up for debate overnight.

PRIME MINISTER'S REPLY

Replying, the Prime Minister said in the afternoon that he was disappointed that the Opposition, after speaking so much about the environment and air quality, had only in his speech referred to the two-tier fares scheme.

The distinction, he said, did not discriminate between nationalities but was based on residency. This was common throughout the EU. The implication of what Dr Muscat was saying was that visitors would end up getting another subsidy.

What he would have expected the Opposition to note was how the new bus service would bring about an immediate improvement in air quality, not least because the buses would have Euro 5 engines.