Hardly a day passes without some form of abuse by bus drivers reported by visitors to Fort Rinella in Kalkara travelling on the Number 4 bus route. Despite all our efforts to offer the highest possible level of courtesy and visitor experience at our many heritage sites, an untold number of otherwise happy and satisfactory holidays are being ruined in this way. Here are just two very recent cases:

April 6: Agnes Herrera, a Maltese immigrant from the US, visited Fort Rinella along with three other friends or relatives. She boarded the bus from Vittoriosa next to Café Riche to Fort Rinella in Kalkara and was charged 47c per passenger. Tickets were issued for this fare at 1.20 p.m. So far all was good, but before alighting the bus Mrs Herrera was asked by the driver to pay an additional €1 per person under some silly pretext and for which no ticket was issued. The driver bagged the money and sped off to the utter consternation of the said passengers.

April 7: Family Brown from the UK boarded the number 4 bus from Valletta main station at 11.22 a.m. The group consisted of three adults and an infant. The adults were travelling with a bus pass but a ticket was obtained for the child.

The trip from Valletta to Kalkara was uneventful till the driver decided to off-load the family group at one of the bus stages in Italian Military Mission Street, Kalkara almost one kilometre away from the fort despite the fact that he should have driven past the fort.

Of course, this caused untold anxiety and hardship to the victims who were aware that they were being short-changed for a service that they had paid for.

FWA holds all the personal details of these individuals who have were involved in these incidents and is passing them on for action.