Shelve Malta Metro Plans And Focus On Fixing Infrastructure, Leading Lobbyist Proposes
A leading lobbyist has urged the government to shelve its plans for a Malta metro and focus its efforts and money on more pressing issues, including fixing existing infrastructure.
“If the government was thinking about carrying out major projects that we don’t even know are viable or not, how long they will take and how much they will cost… now is certainly not the time to think about them,” Joseph Farrugia, director general of the Malta Employers Association, said on Net Live yesterday.
“The government should focus more on immediate issues, including improving existing infrastructure, rather than projects like the metro. I’m not saying the metro project isn’t good but I think there should be a cost-benefit analysis… how much will it cost, what will the effects be and how long will it take to implement?”
A render of the proposed Malta metro
“There’s a war going on in Europe and although we cannot see rockets flying over our skies, it is having an effect on us too. In these circumstances, particularly seeing as we were already exiting the pandemic crisis, one must be careful to keep the debt and deficit levels as low as possible.”
Late last year, the government unveiled plans, drafted by engineering firm Arup, for a three-line underground metro system with 25 stations around Malta. The plan estimates that the metro will cost €6.2 billion and take 15 to 20 years to build.
However, the PL’s victorious manifesto was more cautious, only proposing further discussion and technical studies into the viability of a metro.
Should Malta build a metro?
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