Transport Minister Joe Mizzi

Transport Minister Joe Mizzi yesterday defended himself against accusations that the government had a plan to drive Arriva out of the island and said this was absolutely not the case.

Addressing another dialogue session in the series ‘A government that listens’, Mr Mizzi said that contrary to the continuing criticism, his government did not want a situation in which public transport would have to start being reorganised from scratch.

However, Arriva was adamant it wanted to leave the island and the government had no other option but to face the music.

Mr Mizzi also denied that the government had a done deal over the new operator and said that many companies, including foreign, were showing an interest in providing the service.

“But let me make it clear. This is a big problem and we are not going to perform any miracles,” he said.

He said the current service was already more efficient than it had been under Arriva. Patronage had increased by 200,000 passengers in January over the same month in 2013. He referred to criticism by Scottish operator McGill of the government’s handling of the call for bids to operate the bus service, claiming the real reason it pulled out was that it had not managed to raise enough funds.

Turning to the issue of parking, he said it was being tackled by Transport Malta and a comprehensive plan would soon be announced. A call for expressions of interest in the operation of parking areas in Valletta and Cospicua would soon be published, “open to all”.

With regard to oil exploration, he said this was a priority area for the government. A new exploratory well was going to start being drilled and several foreign companies had shown an interest in exploring for oil and gas in Maltese waters.