(Adds ministry's comments)

A national conference on public transport ,being held on December 5, will see the publication of the government’s thoughts and ideas on the public transport reform, the Transport Ministry said.

It was reacting to a statement by the Public Transport Association (ATP) which earlier today called for talks on public transport reform in line with a pre-election promise.

It said in a statement today that before the election the government said that it was willing to reach a 10-year agreement with the association and if this was terminated and could not be renewed, bus owners would be suitably compensated.

This contract had to be reached before 2010 according to an EU directive.

The association said it had long been calling for public transport reform because it believed this could result in a fair income for the service being offered as well as an improvement in drivers' conditions of work, which were among the worst in the EU.

It was not the association’s fault that road congestion had increased but the failure of government transport policies in the past 20 years which did not seen investment in the sector and seen the number of cars mushroom.

The ministry welcomed the association’s call for reform but said that a letter sent to the association before the election was not for the provision of a service without competition. In this letter, the government had expressed its intention to go in for an agreement as long as this was within the parameters of EU legislation.

As the time, the government had been discussing with the EU the division of the service into a number of contracts so that direct tenders could be awarded according to EU law. But since the association wanted to remain in charge of the income and expenditure of all public transport in Malta, the European Commission did not accept the proposal.

The government’s remaining options were to nationalise the service, something it did not wish to do, or to issue a competitive selection process.

The ministry said that if the owners who were currently operating the service had to stop doing so once the competitive process came to an end, discussions would be held and they would be given suitable compensation.

The ministry’s statement was accompanied by a copy of the letter sent by former minister Jesmond Mugliett to the association.