Residents of Triq il-Wied ta’ Ħal Balzan are fuming over the mess in their road which was meant to have been completed way back in September last year.
Instead, they are having to endure months of mud, dust, dangerous pathways and even the stench of raw sewage.
The road project had been officially announced by Infrastructure Minister Ian Borg in June 2018, with a promise that it will be concluded by September. But the Balzan road, dubbed one of the worst in Malta, is still in a state “as if it’s a road in a third world country”.
“We’re really fed up. It is true that if you want to upgrade, you have to make sacrifices but I think we’ve made too many of these now,” one angry resident told the Times of Malta.
“We were promised it would be ready in three months and although it’s a stretch, we were ready to put up with it. But it’s almost a year now and there’s no end in sight,” another resident lamented.
Last week, residents also had to deal with raw sewage which filled one of the many trenches dug up by the contractors working on the project.
When contacted, a spokesman for Infrastructure Malta said the project has now reached its second phase and was expected to be completed by October.
He said that after the agency’s contractors completed the first phase, which saw the reconstruction of the southern part of the road, work was under way on an overhaul of kilometres of underground networks and the rebuilding of the entire road structure. The final asphalt layer of this stretch of road will be laid along with the rest of the road when all other works were ready.
The second phase, currently in progress, includes the reconstruction of the northern end of the road, from Triq it-Tabib J. Zammit to the Iklin roundabout.
The project along this 500-metre road includes 1.2 kilometres of new pavements, reinforced foundations, more than 3.4 kilometres of new underground water, sewage, internet and other telecommunication networks and the upgrading of the existing storm water catchments and pipelines.
The spokesman said that to place new sewers, trenches deeper than 2.3 metres – in some areas reaching over five metres below ground level – were being dug up.
He explained that contractors were unearthing cables that were not marked – a decision was therefore taken to dig trenches in small stretches to minimise more inconvenience.
“The agency is closely following all works by its contractors to make sure that any unnecessary delays are avoided and that other inconveniences are minimised,” he said.
“At the same time, it needs to make sure that the ongoing trenching works are carried out very cautiously, also without putting the workers’ safety at risk or damaging existing infrastructure,” the spokesman added.