Labour disagrees with seven-year contract to be signed by government

Labour shadow minister for education Evarist Bartolo has said a future Labour government would not bind itself to a seven-year contract signed by government for the provision of state school transport.

Bartolo said Labour disagreed with these types of long-term contracts when a government's term in office is near completion, and said the seven-year contract was unacceptable when only a limited number of transport operators provided transport services to state school pupils.

“It is not acceptable that the contract to be signed is only with a few large operators, because it creates a monopoly situation and excludes the element of competition which could be offered to smaller operators,” Bartolo said.

The MP said that the fact that only a limited of operators were included in the contracted will make it more difficult to achieve a good quality service at a competitive price, especially when the call for applications was released in August and advertised in the newspapers, but closed before it could be displayed in the government gazzette. The PL has notified the National Audit Office to conduct an audit of the contract award.

“It is unacceptable because the government has already shown a lack of serious planning when recalling for the scholastic transport contract in March which passed with unrealistic conditions resulting in the contract having to be invalidated,” said Bartolo.