Time for change of mentality in road repairs

The government has set up "a very small unit" to oversee the placement of proper signs to warn drivers in good time of large potholes on the road ahead, Infrastructure Minister Austin Gatt told Parliament yesterday.

He was speaking during a short impromptu discussion on the failures of road repair, especially after storms.

Dr Gatt told the opposition that it was time for a radical change, not only of regulations, but also of mentality, to get good value for money for around €35 million spent on road maintenance every year. He suggested that all sides get together to put up a united front to force contractors to get their act together.

Answering a number of supplementary questions by Labour whip Joe Mizzi and Labour MP Anthony Agius Decelis on the bad state of roads and the ineffectiveness of road patching, the minister said that there were about 10 hot asphalt batching plants in existence which, due to the lack of work, had a standing agreement that only one of them worked in any given week unless there was too much work to be done.

He conceded that even the best hot asphalt would break up again if it rained heavily soon after the asphalt was laid, and that both government departments and contractors were failing badly in adequately warning drivers of impending dangers.

Unfortunately, Dr Gatt said, EU standards in road construction had been brought into play only in recent years, on newly-reconstructed roads for the TEN-T programme and the Italian protocol. The same could be said of signage. Long-established roads had not been given good beds in their construction.

In Malta there was too wide a spread of responsibilities for road maintenance, with 70 to 75 different authorities including local councils, and, truth be told, some quarters that were dominated by road contractors. What was needed was the setting-up of economies of scale on a national level and greater all-round cooperation in facing up to road contractors. As things were being done currently, a good amount of the circa €35 million that went into road maintenance every year were being taken up by administrative costs.

It was time to do things better, Dr Gatt concluded.