The Malta Transport Authority (ADT) yesterday said it will not give in to pressure to sign any contract with bus drivers or with the Public Transport Assocation (PTA) before the election is announced.
A spokesman for the authority was reacting to PTA president Victor Spiteri's ultimatum to the government when he warned of possible industrial action if this contract is not signed before the election date is announced.
When contacted Mr Spiteri said discussions with the authority had been going on for around four months and had stopped all of a sudden. He said the association is sure that once the election date is announced, the possibility of a meeting will vanish and the contract will not be signed until after the general election.
He said the association had written to Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi several times in the last three years but never received a positive reply to their request for a meeting.
In the latest letter sent to Dr Gonzi, the association asked for his intervention as talks on the reform of the public transport service had stalled.
"The government reached agreements with doctors, teachers, nurses and public sector workers, among others. We expect that the government will now reach an agreement with us, before the election," he said.
According to an EU directive on public transport, the transport authority in any member state has three options on how to put this directive into force.
Firstly, it can provide public passenger transport services itself, awarding contracts directly to an "internal operator", which is a legally distinct entity over which the authority exercises control similar to that exercised over its own departments.
A second option is to contract them out, issuing a call for tenders if the services are above a certain size or value.
The third option - in the case of smaller contracts - is for the authorities to award public service contracts directly (without a call for tender). This will be allowed either where their average annual value is estimated at less than €1 million or where fewer than 300,000 kilometres of services are concerned.
In Malta's case, the ADT has been holding discussions with the PTA about which option to go for. A spokesman said the ADT will not be dragged into signing a contract hastily, especially when the EU regulation does not come into force until next year.