The Infrastructure Ministry this afternoon gave a point-by-point explanation of the reasoning behind the government's plans to reform the management of 34 car parks in various localities.

It said that this was not a Transport Malta initiative but an initiative approved by the Cabinet as in conformed with government policy for the transparent provision of services while safeguarding the livelihood of the service providers.

This, the ministry said, was not a privatisation process. The car parks were already privbately operated by licensed parkers. The government had the discretion to stop the operation of the parkers at any time, which was not right.  The parkers were engaged without any competition, whereas now, the government would hand   over the management of the car parks after a public call.

The ministry said the call for tenders had been made for the management of the car parks which were already administered by parkers and where, therefore, motorists were already being charged, even though, to date, such payments were never regulated.

Referring to comments made yesterday by a councillor from Mosta, the ministry said no local council ever sought the devolution of car parks administered by parkers. Neither had the Labour Party ever said that it should be the local councils which should administer the car parks which were run by parkers.

It was not true, the ministry said, that the call for tenders was a surprise. Several MPs over the past two years had put questions in Parliament on the stage of the process, showing that they knew what was happening. The process had also been under negotiation between Transport Malta and the UHM and several news items were published. Yet no objections of the kind being made by the Pl now, were ever made before.

The ministry said there should be no controversy in the fact that the car parks would be adequately lit and have better infrastructure including signage., while also being covered by insurance.

Neither should it be controversial that the government was ending the precarious situation which parkers had suffered to date, with no guarantees at their place of work. The PL spoke of being against precarious work, yet at the first test it was fighting to perpetuate it.

Regarding claims that the government would not be controlling the parking tariffs, the ministry said that there also were no controls at present. That the PL wanted price controls was a throwback to the past.

It was clear, the ministry said, that the only reason for the current PL criticism was that the party had found allies with whom to attack the minister (Austin Gatt). This was borne out by the fact that no one ever criticised the current process before, and no one objected when Hamrun council privatised the operation of its own car park. Indeed, Joseph Muscat had inaugurated that car park. In that case, no consultations were made, no tariff was established and no measure was taken for the residents to park free of charge.