Roads Minister Jesmond Mugliett yesterday savaged the opposition’s roads spokesman over the rebuilding of the Mtarfa bypass, which took several years to complete. For one, Mr Mugliett said, Charles Buhagiar had not mentioned that the rebuilding had to be resorted to because of the incompetence and neglect which characterised the infrastructural works of past Labour administrations.

Mr Mugliett said the Mtarfa bypass was one of the roads built by Labour in the 1980s. The rebuilding completed last week had shown that not only had the road been built at the edge of a clay hill without any retaining structures, but it had also been built on a bed of organic waste, such as tree branches.

In fact it had caved in just a few years after it was opened, and one of its lanes was closed to traffic because it was a danger to users. The rebuilding, however, Mr Mugliett said, included the longest and highest retaining wall built for a road. Its cost accounted for more than half the works’ total outlay.

As for the vaunted planning of infrastructural works between 1997-98, Mr Mugliett added, there was not one road project which had not wildly surpassed the planned cost.

Even after the Coordinating Unit had been set up, he said, Bugibba’s development had cost Lm3.56 million, instead of the planned Lm1.95 million.