(Adds Finance + Transport Ministry statements)

The government should reclaim the money it had paid consultants to come up with the new bus routes which were now being changed for the fifth time, Labour leader Joseph Muscat said this morning.

Speaking in Zabbar this morning, Dr Muscat said the opposition had immediately criticised the new routes but the government had said this was sour grapes because the new routes were extremely successful.

If this was the case why were they being changed so frequently, Dr Muscat asked.

The opposition had immediately known the new routes were a fiasco because it listened to the people. The government was, on the other hand, cut off from the people and its arrogance was deafening.

Dr Muscat hoped that the contract of the consultants who had drawn up the new routes included a clause that they would get paid depending on the success of their proposal.

Dr Muscat pointed out that only two days before the routes were changed, the government issued a statement saying that public transport usage was up by 22 per cent.

But later it emerged that people who were now having to use more than one bus for trips which previously were direct, were being counted as a distinct user for each part of the route.

Could this mean that there was no increase at all or that usage had actually dropped, Dr Muscat asked.

He noted that the Prime Minister, who was ultimately responsible for the fiasco because the new service had worsened the people's quality of life, had kept out of the saga.

The Labour leader referred to the recent developments that a person was to be arraigned regarding super yachts tender.

Dr Muscat noted that the office of the Prime Minister had had the information on which the police had decided to act for months but this had been passed on to the Finance Minister.

The minister sent for the people involved and asked them whether corruption was involved. The minister then took their word that no corruption had taken place and not the case not been brought up in Parliament, there would not have been a police investigation as a result of which a person was to be arraigned.

This, the Labour leader said, was a serious case of lack of judgement by the Finance Minister and the person involved could have destroyed all the evidence in the days after being approached by the finance minister till when the police embarked on their investigation.

MUSCAT TRYING TO HINDER INVESTIGATIONS - Ministry

In a statement, the Finance Ministry said that in May 2010, Dr Muscat had boasted in Parliament that he knew about the allegations but he did not do anything about them.

After keeping the information to himself rather than pass it on to the police, he was now trying to hinder the investigative and judicial protest in an irresponsible manner.

The ministry said that the government had, on the other hand, requested the police commissioner to investigate.

Moreover, the tender process on which the allegations had been made had been stopped by the government.

GOVERNMENT HAS BEEN SAYING SINCE LAUNCH THAT ROUTES ARE NOT CAST IN STONE - Ministry

The Transport Ministry in a statement said that the minister had said when the service was launched that the new routes were not cast in stone and could be changed according to need.

It was not true that the Labour Party had immediately criticised the routes. On the contrary, the PL never took part in the consultation for these to be drawn up.

But it was now trying to gain credit for the changes. The Labour leader first criticised the government that it was not listening to the people and now that it had listened to the people too well and was changing the routes to how they wanted them.

The Labour leader also tried to ridicule the statistics published this week about the number of public transport users.

It seemed that the Labour leader had forgotten that in the previous system commuters had to change buses if they wanted to go to a locality other than Valletta.

Then, each time they boarded a bus they had to pay for a ticket so their trip also used to count as two.

Statistics were now gathered electronically each time passengers boarded a bus on the same criteria as with the old system.