Three months after Transport Malta was lambasted for its “arrogance” by the Ombudsman for ignoring the plight of a 70-year-old man, the authority still has not addressed his complaint or paid him compensation as it was ordered to.
“They didn’t even say sorry. They never did anything,” Carmelo Briffa, who lodged the complaint, told The Times. “A man saying he was from Transport Malta came in January to see what could be done, and we’ve heard nothing since.”
Mr Briffa, a retired engineer, says he has not even received the nominal €500 compensation ordered by the Ombudsman.
In January, Ombudsman Joseph Said Pullicino had slammed the authority for “systematically ignoring” serious complaints by Mr Briffa, whose garage was being flooded with rainwater because of bad road works on the pavement outside his garage.
The authority failed to keep three deadlines it had given the Ombudsman, one of 2008, the other September 2009, and the third for January of this year.
After the Ombudsman published his report in January, Transport Minister Austin Gatt wrote to the authority’s chairman saying he was “perturbed” that Transport Malta had failed to reply to a communication by the Ombudsman.
He had also instructed management to identify the employees responsible, see whether disciplinary action was in order and carry out the road repairs immediately.
“To this date, nothing has been done to fix the situation,” Mr Briffa, who needs a wheelchair to move around, said.
Every time it rains heavily or a pipe bursts, water is diverted to his underground garages and his front garden, which is below street level. Weeks since it last rained heavily, the garage is still damp and humid.
His wife Adele says the couple has not been down there for a long time. “You should have come here when it rained, it would have been full of water,” she said, pointing at a damp patch.
Since the Ombudsman’s report, both the Transport Authority and the Ministry failed to answer questions from The Times in connection with this case.
The authority was asked whether the employees responsible for this case had been identified and whether disciplinary action had been taken against them, in line with Dr Gatt’s instructions.
The Times also asked whether any measures had been taken to avoid similar cases in the future but the authority’s response was a curt one line sentence stating: “With reference to the instructions provided by Minister Gatt in connection with the Ombudsman’s report on a complaint lodged against TM by a Qawra resident, kindly be advised that TM has implemented the minister’s instructions.”
The authority also failed to explain why it only denied responsibility for the flooding after the Ombudsman’s report.
Separate questions put to the Transport Ministry, asking what was being done to address this problem, were also left unanswered.
After Mr Briffa’s case and the Ombudsman’s criticism, the authority again found itself publicly accused of arrogance, this time by Magistrate Silvio Meli.
The Magistrate said the authority had acted with “unacceptable arrogance” with regard to a woman who was owed €4,400 over excess VAT paid on her car and who was told she would get her money back over the years.
Here too, questions sent more than a week ago to the authority, asking if any employees had been disciplined or dismissed in the wake of this case, were left unanswered.