Mizzi challenges PN to address ex Arriva CEO’s damning remarks

Transport minister Joe Mizzi challenged the Opposition to speak in Parliament about damning comments passed by the former chief executive of Arriva.

Responding to a series of supplementary questions from the Opposition benches, a fired-up Mizzi noted that David Martin had in a recent interview lambasted the 2011 privatisation of Malta’s bus service as an “unmitigated disaster”.

“[The government] probably spent a huge amount of money on some parasitic consultants who certainly charged an awful lot for their services and created something that was absolutely, totally unworkable,” Martin told the UK transport magazine RouteOne.

“People started using their cars more frequently because they had lost heart in public transport after the [Arriva] fiasco,” he said. “Arriva’s former CEO has passed serious allegations that people were paid a lot of money for doing nothing, and yet the Opposition has not yet uttered a word about it.”