€1 million budget for national bus company

The Finance Ministry allocated €1 million in the form of a government shareholding for the set-up of the Malta Public Transport Services Ltd, the national public transport company that took over the Arriva Malta operations.

The budgetary vote was allocated at the end of 2013, but beyond the initial €1 million, the government has made no further allocations, a ministry spokesperson told MaltaToday.

The public transport service was nationalised in the beginning of 2014 after Arriva transferred its assets to government.

The government has so far not revealed how much of Arriva's debt has been transferred to the new company, but said that the removal of a discriminatory tariff structure that charged non-Maltese residents higher fares, will cost €3 million.

For the foreseeable future, MPTS will be utilising funds from the €8.5 million public service obligation budgetary allocation.

"It is the government's express intention that the current monthly costs incurred by the public transport system are reduced through efficiency gains, and do not increase above the levels reached in December 2013, notwithstanding any managerial changes that may take place," a spokesperson for the finance ministry said.

The spokesperson excluded any effect on the government's deficit.

While admitting that the full picture of the impact could not be fully ascertained as yet, the spokesperson said the government was determined to ensure that the current deficit targets are not affected. "As with any other unforeseen public expenditure, the cost of rescuing the public transport system must be absorbed within the current budget in a manner that ensures that the deficit target for 2014 remains unchanged."

€243,000 weekly for UBS

In a reply to a parliamentary question, Transport Minister Joe Mizzi revealed that the government is paying the Unscheduled Bus Service company €35,472 a day to use 40 coaches as an alternative to the bendy buses. On Sundays, when 36 cars are used, the government pays €32,572.

Passengers are not expected to pay the driver when they use these coaches but passengers are expected to buy their tickets from ticketing machines. This means that the substitution of bendy buses alone is costing an extra €1 million a month.

Transport Malta CEO James Piscopo has excluded substituting these coaches before a new private operator is found. "It wouldn't be realistic to replace any of the private coaches which replaced the bendy-buses, with newer, environmentally-friendly buses before a new operator is engaged."