Consultation meetings on liberalisation, scheduled to start yesterday between the Transport Ministry, the Minibuses Cooperative and the White Taxi Services Amalgamated, were cancelled by the transport operators due to court commitments.
The meetings were announced by Transport Minister Austin Gatt on Thursday evening shortly after the Transport Federation informed the government it was lifting the strike that started on Monday.
The minister said on Thursday that since the strike had pushed the issue of liberalisation higher on the country's agenda, consultations would be held throughout the summer with a decision expected to be taken before the end of the year.
"Both the Minibuses Cooperative chairman and the White Taxis Amalgamated CEO called or e-mailed to apologise for not being able to attend the meeting at such short notice.
"They both said they had court commitments they could not get out of today (yesterday) and asked for a meeting to be scheduled next week for talks to start," a ministry spokesman said.
The spokesman said the ministry intended to embark on an intense process of discussion which would lead to the award of new taxi and mini-bus licences, a market the government wanted to enlarge substantially.
"It is very encouraging that now everyone agrees with this policy," the spokesman said.
As a result of the strike, the minister had announced that the minibuses cooperative had lost its Park and Ride contract and a new call was issued yesterday.
However, the cooperative was providing the service temporarily yesterday and will keep operating from the Park and Ride area to and from Valletta until the new tender is awarded.
Efforts to contact federation president Victor Spiteri proved futile.
The Communications Ministry said that as had been agreed with the hearses association, the importation of new hearses would be tax exempt until March. Moreover, all those who wanted to licence a hearse could do so with the Malta Transport Authority but no second-hand hearses would be registered for the next 10 years.