Alex Borg: 'I will resign if metro is not done in five years'

Alex Borg has said he will resign if a PN government does not have an 11.5 km-long metro line up and running within five years.

“Yes,” the PN leader said when pressed on Il-Każin x Times of Malta.  “If I don’t complete an operational [metro] line in the first five years, I’ll resign.”

“That’s how sure I am of our team of experts and our plan. I am putting my career on the line. I will resign.”

Borg made the pledge in the course of an interview on Monday evening, facing questions posed by co-hosts Jon Mallia and Mark Laurence Zammit.

Labour leader Robert Abela, who was also invited to take part in the show, declined the invitation. Borg agreed to face questions alone, with co-hosts also reading out some of the questions they would have liked to ask Abela.

Audience members were asked to vote for one of the two leaders in reply to the question 'Who do you believe should be Malta's next prime minister?'

Il-Każin x Times of Malta is a monthly debate show organised in collaboration between Il-Każin and Times of Malta.

The PN last week presented plans to develop a €1.4 billion, 11.5km metro line linking the airport to Pembroke within five years. The metro will be free for residents to use. No other country has completed a project of that magnitude within that timeframe.

“I understand your doubts,” Borg told the show hosts as he faced questions about the risk of procurement and planning delays related to the ambitious project.

He insisted the plan was realistic and doable.  

Borg was also asked by an audience member, engineer Marco Cremona, if he would commit to a short-term traffic solution he designed and which is being proposed by Momentum. 

The proposal would see Malta’s fleet of Y-Plate cabs deployed for shared, low-cost rides.

“It’s a positive idea, but I have a clear commitment to the metro. We need alternatives to cars,” he said. 

PN’s manifesto costs €6.7 billion

Earlier in the show, Borg revealed that the PN’s electoral pledges would cost €6.7 billion to implement across a five-year period.

The PN’s €6.7 billion calculation stands in contrast to the €6.3 billion Abela said Labour’s electoral pledges would cost. Abela revealed the figure in the course of a debate with Borg at the Malta Chamber of Commerce, Enterprise and Industry.

Both parties are promising a raft of personal and business tax cuts, grants, stipend and pension increases to voters. Both are also pledging their own forms of mass transportation – Labour a 15-year, €2.8 billion light rail project and the PN a €1.4 billion metro project it claims will be done in five years.

The PN is also pledging a massive infrastructural drive, building a school every year, new hospitals and an offshore fuel hub.

When pressed on how a PN government would be able to afford all this, Borg pointed to the new economic sectors the party is seeking to develop. He brushed aside questions about the party’s plan B – what it would do if things do not go as planned.

“It’s planned and doable. If I didn’t have my team of experts, I wouldn’t commit to these things,” Borg said.

A party financing promise

The PN leader also spoke in absolute terms about his commitment to introduce good governance reforms, including a reform of ministerial asset declarations.

He was pressed on the PN’s failure to publish accounts related to its media arm, Media.Link, in decades. The Labour Party has also not published accounts for its media arm in years – something Borg emphasised with multiple examples.

“We have now started the process of slowly publishing Media.Link accounts and restructuring it,” he said.

“Our total debt is of around €32 million, with €11 million of that the party’s.”

He said the PN’s manifesto pledged constitutional reform.

Alex Borg speaking at Il-Kazin. Photo: Jake Bellizzi

“And that reform will lead to a reform of political party financing,” Borg said. “Their media arms too.”

Would he agree to a law that sees parties lose their licences if their subsidiaries did not release their accounts?

“No problem,” Borg said.

He also said he was in favour of a transparency register for ministers [“provided it’s within the remit of data protection”], reform to make MPs full-time and bump up the salaries of ministers and the prime minister.

And in reply to questions from audience member Emma Brownrigg Fenech, Borg said the PN was also in favour of reforming the Freedom of Information Act to better empower journalists.

He committed to removing the prime minister’s veto powers over FOI requests. 

Fuel hub experts

Borg also committed the PN to publishing its list of experts working on its fuel hub plan. The party has resisted Labour pressure to cite who is behind the plan. 

“You will see them, because they are the ones who will be implementing the project,” he said. 

'One mosque is enough'

He was also pressed on his statement - made in a debate at the University of Malta - about Malta not needing another mosque.

“We have a mosque in Paola. My party is a Christian democratic one, I prefer to be clear with people. I do not think we need another mosque. One is enough,” he said. 

'Perhaps I slipped up'

In the course of the interview, Borg was presented with statistics suggesting Malta needs to continue importing foreign workers to fill the roughly 6,000 apartments being built every year.

“We need sustainable development,” Borg said. “This is why we need to revise local plans. Instead of revising them, this government kept introducing planning policies that were then successfully contested in court. We need clarity.”

He was also asked about the PN’s more general economic vision and confusion over his calculations for a PN pledge to first-time buyers.

Borg first said the pledge would cost €2.8 million annually, though the party later clarified the real figure was €37 million a year.

“Maybe I slipped up,” he said when pressed.

“But we presented our full forecasts the very next day.”

In his closing statement, Borg said he hoped people had seen the difference between parties.

“We focused on a clean campaign, without mudslinging and focused solely on the future. We’ve given clear commitments. I am so convinced of them that I’ve put my political career on the line for them.”