The relocation of 81 bendy buses to Sudan is expected to go down like a ton of bricks with the Sudanese, who are none too happy with the prospect of the unwieldy 18 metre buses snaking through their streets

A Sudanese journalist questioned why the rejected buses are going to be used in Sudan given their disposition to drive people round the bend.

“That's all we need bendy buses to clog up the streets. These buses weren’t a success in the UK nor Malta, why would they be so in Sudan? It will become clearer once they are on the road, but roads are narrow plus the usual congestion, it won’t go down too well,” the journalist told The Malta Independent.

London Mayor Boris Johnson famously boasted that the “jack-knifed diplodocus” are “now clogging up the streets of Malta,” the Arriva first started operating in Malta using some of London’s rejected bendy buses.

The bendy buses were sold by the Maltese government for €601,200 for export to Sudan.

The bendy buses were taken off the road last year after three of them caught fire. A report on the fires pinpointed diesel spillage and poor cooling as the cause.

With temperatures sometimes hitting the 42°C mark in Sudan, it may be a case of out of frying pan and into the fire for the bendy buses.

It is "an idiotic move to buy cheap vehicles just to showoff because bendy buses are a first here! No official nor press has said anything yet,” one Sudanese commented.