The statement was issued in reply to the one issued by the Federation of Industry on Thursday on the subject. The FOI said that for Malta to have better roads, contractors carrying out the roadworks have to be allowed fairer rates of payment.

The government and the FOI were referring to a story carried by The Malta Independent about the difficulties being encountered by the ADT to move forward with its programme of roadworks. The article quoted sources saying that prices being quoted by contractors were far higher than the authority’s estimates.

In its statement, the government said that just because it did not meet the contractors’ representatives did not mean that the government had not revised the rates on which it was preparing its estimates.

It said it had studied the proposals submitted by the individual contractors and the ADT had revised certain elements on which it was basing its estimates such as the overheads, which, the government admitted, could have been too cheap.

This exercise, the statement said, had resulted in an agreement with a number of contractors and some roadworks had begun in the past few days. However, some of the work is costing the government between seven and nine per cent more than the estimated amount. The statement went on to say that most of the bids submitted for the 17 tenders issued by the ADT in July were between 10 and 20 per cent more expensive than the estimates.

The government said it was looking into the matter of the terms of payment for contractors but insisted that competition between one contractor and another resulted in value for money and a better finished product.