Bus drivers employed by Malta Public Transport Services are complaining of “total mismanagement” and “waste of public funds” since the government took over the running of the service from Arriva at the beginning of the year.

While the government is still forking out some €30,000 a day to lease about 50 private coaches from the Unscheduled Bus Services (UBS), buses owned by the State company are being left idle.

“I am doing nothing for hours at the Valletta terminus so that some routes are covered by the private coaches,” a 42-year-old bus driver told this newspaper. “Our work schedule is changed several times a day and our buses are not used so that work is given to private coach owners,” he claimed.

Arriva had originally leased some 40 coaches and minibuses from the private sector in 2013 after the government ordered the UK company to stop using the bendy buses.

After Arriva gave up the Malta business, the government took over the running of public transport, hiring 40 vehicles at €210,000 a week on grounds they were needed until new buses were leased from abroad.

Last May, the government signed a €2.4 million deal with a UK company to lease 45 new buses for a year; however, the UBS coaches continued to be leased by the government. It is estimated that by the end of September, the government paid UBS some €12 million to hire coaches.

More in The Sunday Times of Malta and the e-paper on Timesofmalta.com

MALTA PUBLIC TRANSPORT REACTION

In a reaction Malta Public Transport denied that drivers or buses were being kept idle. It said it had  a strict policy that company resources including drivers and buses are to be fully utilised before resorting to sub-contracting. 

It said that this year it sold more tickets than last year, carried more passengers than last year, and even with sub-contracting and an overall increase in fleet size, the operational cost base for the company was still less than it was for the same period last year.