The government has no intention of seeking to recover funds paid to its consultants on public transport, despite its decision to ditch many of the new bus routes.

In a statement today, the Transport Ministry said it does not intend to sue those technical advisers who advised it to decentralise the bus service.

The technical consultants had given advice of how the government could use the people's money responsibly while improving the relevance of public transport, the ministry said. The fact that some aspects of this change had not been popular did not invalidate the advice that had been given.

Opposition leader Joseph Muscat said yesterday that the government should reclaim the money (said to be €400,000) it had paid consultants to come up with the new bus routes which were now being changed for the fifth time.

The ministry, reacting to another PL statement, also said it had no problem assuming responsibility for adopting the advice it had been given and it also had no problem is assuming responsibility for its decision to retain what had been liked while re-introducing direct services between Valletta, Mater Dei and the various towns and villages.

The ministry noted that despite everything, the number of commuters on the buses had increased. It did not appear that the increase was from the services which were already provided, but from the new aspects which did not exist before, such as regular bus services in Gozo, the new links between tourist areas and the airport, the night services, frequent and regular services, localities which previously were not on the bus routes and services between neighbouring localities.