The Chamber for Small and Medium Enterprises, GRTU, is up in arms after being told that the Roads Minister and the Prime Minister were considering leaving the ‘old’ regional road bridge carriageway open for Christmas, only to later learn that demolition works had started that very same day.
The director general, Vince Farrugia, and the president of the Tourism, Hospitality and Leisure Section, Philip Fenech addressed a news conference yesterday and asked what exactly was going on.
To give a sense of chronology, Mr Fenech and Mr Farrugia said that last Wednesday, they had a meeting with Roads Minister Jesmond Mugliett who told them that the government was considering the GRTU’s proposal to leave the old carriageway open for the Christmas season.
The GRTU has said that its members in the Paceville area have been losing a great deal of custom because of the works on Manuel Dimech bridge, which should have been completed last September, and suggested leaving the old section, which has yet to be re-built, open over the Christmas period.
Mr Farrugia and Mr Fenech both said that Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi publicly announced that the government could not give a completion date for the project because they were still in the process of thinking about the GRTU’s proposal.
However, the government went ahead with work to start demolishing the bridge on the same day that the meeting with Minister Mugliett was held, claimed the GRTU. Mr Fenech and Mr Farrugia asked: “What is going on? Doesn’t the Prime Minister know what is going on? Or is the government simply taking the Mickey out of us?”
In a counter-statement, the Roads Ministry said that the 30 November meeting had been cancelled for the two sides to study alternative solutions for the benefit of the Paceville commercial community.
The ministry said that if both decks were to be opened to traffic during the Christmas period this would lead to further delays for the completion of the project.
The government will be meeting the GRTU to offer alternatives that would boost commercial activity in the area during the Christmas season.