The Transport Ministry is keeping silent over the future of the 80 bendy buses despite boasting of a commitment to export them by the middle of last month.

Times of Malta this week revealed that although the controversial bendy buses had to be exported to Sudan by their new Maltese buyers, they were still parked in Floriana’s Horns Works ditch.

No information was given on whether any problems had cropped up between the ministry and the owners of Calypso Garage in Luqa that bought the buses for over €600,000.

Earlier this week, this newspaper asked the Transport Ministry for clarifications and the latest state of play of the deal.

However, despite a promise to reply to the questions, the ministry’s spokeswoman had still not answered by the time of writing.

A spokesman for Calypso Garage this week confirmed that they had bought all the buses from Transport Malta but would not confirm that they were bound to export them within four weeks to Sudan as the ministry had announced.

“This is a commercial deal and you must ask the ministry on what they said,” he insisted.

Announcing the sale of the bendy buses last February 18, the Transport Ministry said the new owners were bound by contract to export the buses within four weeks from the deal. Yet, the buses are still here.

Meanwhile, the Nationalist Opposition yesterday again criticised the government-led management of the public transport system.

PN spokesman Toni Bezzina said that, according to information given in Parliament, in the first three months of the year there was a drop of seven per cent in revenue from the sale of bus tickets.

He said that although the government attributed this to the removal of differentiated tariffs between locals and tourists, this could not have been the case because tourism was at its lowest level during the winter months.

He said that if this were the case, it would mean losses would be much higher in the coming months when tourism reached its peak.

According to Transport Ministry information given in Parliament, since taking over public transport from Arriva at the beginning of the year, the service was losing €2.2 million a month.

Mr Bezzina said this showed the mismanagement and incompetence of minister Joe Mizzi with taxpayers having to foot the bill.

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