Roads Minister Austin Gatt has directed the Transport Authority (ADT) to commission independent testing of all roads contracted for construction by the authority and not to rely any more on certification issued by contractors thrmselves. The request includes roads managed by local councils.

He said that it is in the public interest to ensure that road construction, road maintenance, road verges and pavements, service ducts and culverts as well as road markings and direction signs are up to internationally recognised quality standards.

Dr Gatt told the authority that it must not accept any tender for works that does not adhere to such quality standards and it is to black list tenderers who repeatedly do not achieve quality standards.

"I cannot accept the standard excuse that local contractors do not have the required knowledge to deliver work of sufficiently high standards," Dr Gatt said.

"Although I understand that quality tests are required on newly constructed or extensively refurbished roads, I am informed that at present these tests are not carried out by the authority but by the contractors and at testing facilities that the contractor chooses. I consider this as bad practice. It is in the public interest that such tests are carried out by an independent laboratory in order that the authority, the guardian of the public interest in this area, can, independently of the contractor, ascertain that the quality contracted for is being delivered," Dr Gatt said.

Dr Gatt complained about the quality of road patching on some roads and said it was unacceptable for the authority itself, as well as local council, to follow a policy of accepting low quality work simply because it was provided by the tenderer with the cheapest offer.

"Minimum published quality standards should be the basic and only acceptable benchmark for tendering."

He said that road markings were also inferior to international quality standards and the directive, therefore, applied to them as well.