One of the leading private bus and coach operators in Malta would be interested in taking over the public transport service should the long drawn-out negotiations between government and Arriva fail, The Sunday Times of Malta has learnt.
Sources said that in recent weeks word spread among Arriva employees that Paramount Coaches was keen to take over the business from Arriva by setting up a consortium which would include a number of locally-based companies.
The sources said that one of the “least messy options” would be for Arriva to transfer its business to the new consortium rather than terminate its 10-year contract by mutual consent, or file for liquidation which would be the worst case scenario.
Contacted by The Sunday Times of Malta, Joseph Abela from Paramount Coaches confirmed the company’s interest in taking over public transport but said it was still early days. “There is interest, but nothing concrete at the moment. There are many rumours going around,” Mr Abela said.
Negotiations between the Transport Minister, Arriva and Transport Malta have been going on since the end of August when the company was forced to withdraw its 68 bendy buses from the roads following three separate incidents of fire of the space of 48 hours.
Since then the government has said that it does not want the 18-metre long buses on the roads, saying the vehicles are too large and slowing down traffic.
Meanwhile it has also emerged that the company has lost more than €35 million since its start of operations in Malta.Though Transport Minister Joe Mizzi has been saying since last month that negotiations were only days from being concluded, sources said that neither side had not budged from its position.
Apart from the bendy buses issue, there was also disagreement on the new routes which the government is determined to introduce by March. Arriva has said these will require a larger fleet of buses and subsequently an increased annual government subsidy.
The uncertainty surrounding Arriva’s future has trickled down to all levels of the company with employees of all grades fearing that their job might be in the balance.
Sources said in some cases Arriva employees were not able to obtain a bank loan, as questions were raised over the future of their job. When contacted, GWU transport secretary Jeremy Camilleri said the union would be insisting that any new operator would have to keep the same employees. He said the messiest option would be if the company had to file for liquidation.
He said the union was concerned, but whenever it raised this issue Arriva remained tight-lipped saying that negotiations had not yet been concluded whereas government had said that job losses were not on the cards.