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Karl Schembri
Around 130 of Malta’s traditional old buses are waiting to be scrapped after they were mysteriously dismantled under the Transport Authority’s custody.
A good number of them can be seen abandoned in Hay Wharf, Marsa, from where unknown looters have taken all the parts they could before the buses are taken on their final journey to the scrap yards.
A transport authority spokesperson confirmed that the buses have been sold to be scrapped following a call for tenders, with the highest offer being Lm100.50 per bus.
Bus owners who bought new buses with government subsidies were required to return their old buses to the authority in good condition.
The authority’s spokesperson said “only two or three buses, which had been replaced some years ago, were delivered with major parts missing”.
“Although the buses could still be driven under their own power, they are very old and in a very bad condition for the road and are certainly not environment or health friendly,” the spokesperson said.
But the state they are in now has nothing to do with when they were handed in by their owners.
“These buses were submitted by their owners on the day they got the new ones,” sources from the transport authority said. “They had just stopped operating them on the road; they were working right until they were taken off the roads. So how did they end up reduced to junk?”
The President of the Public Transport Association, Victor Spiteri, said all the buses submitted were in working order.
“I confirm that the buses have been dismantled since they were handed to the authority, under supervision,” Spiteri said. “It hurts me to see all those old buses abandoned like that, I can’t bear the sight. You won’t believe that we had calls from countries and museums abroad to buy them, to turn them into historical attractions or make good use of them, and instead they’re just going to scrap them.”
The authority will be retaining 22 of the replaced old buses “for historical reasons,” the spokesperson said.
“Some of them may in the future be exhibited in a ‘transport museum’,” she said, admitting this was “still at an embryonic stage, “while others may be used on special or historic occasions.”
“The museum has been at an ‘embryonic stage’ since 1995,” Spiteri said, deriding the authority for its lack of vision.
Meanwhile yesterday was also the last trip for the short-lived tourist tour service on old buses.
According to Spiteri, the Transport Authority and the Tourism Authority which were sponsoring the tourist route from Sliema to Bugibba stopped funding the service after only six months, making it unfeasible for the association to continue.
“There was huge pressure from the unscheduled bus service to stop this tourist attraction, and there were lots of conflicts of interests involved,” Spiteri said.
Shortly after it was launched and acclaimed by Tourism Minister Francis Zammit Dimech, Nationalist MP Robert Arrigo, who has private interests in tourism packages and transport, had queried in Parliament why the government was funding the service.
Spiteri said his association had called on the government to turn the route the other way round, starting from Bugibba, where lots of tourists would be residing in nearby hotels.
“As it is, the route is doomed to fail, and some may want it to fail,” Spiteri said. “The transport authority never took our ideas seriously.”
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