Labour rides on Johnson jibe, ‘Austin Gatt subjecting Malta to ridicule’

Labour MP and party spokesman for transport Joe Sammut said that comments made by the Mayor of London, in which he slagged off bendy-buses operated by Arriva in London before they were removed, "calls for Transport Minister Austin Gatt's resignation."

London mayor Boris Johnson yesterday hailed the long-awaited departure of bendy-buses from the British capital, telling the Tory conference in Birmingham that Arriva's articulated buses "are now clogging up the streets of Malta."

"The Mayor's comments confirm what we have long been saying. The planning of the public transform reform was a complete failure and that is why  we called for Austin Gatt's resignation," Sammut said in a statement.

Sammut said the public transport reform had led to increased congestions on the Maltese roads. He said that nothing has changed since it fell under the wing of the Prime Minister.

"Minister Gatt promised a new fleet of modern buses that would pollute less. We were instead given second-hand bendy buses coming from a country that wanted to get rid of them," Sammut said.

Sammut added that Gatt and his clique had subjected the whole country to ridicule with their lack of planning.

The 18-metre long buses run some of Malta's main bus routes since public transport was liberalised and British company Arriva took over the operation of the bus network.

On his part, Gatt has pointed out the irony that Malta's Labour finds it useful to repeat what the British Conservatives were saying. "Passengers in Malta appreciate the comfort and the sheer capacity of articulated buses as they comfortably carry in a single bus journey what used to take 3 to 4 buses before," Gatt said. "By our mathematics, that is considerably less congestion, rather than more. The mayor's mathematics will have to work out the considerably higher expense for bespoke buses that London taxpayers have to pay for to replace the transferred bendy buses."

Gatt said articulated buses were hardly an exclusive feature of Maltese roads, since they operate in just about every other city in with high bus passenger numbers.