Transport Ministry Won’t Say If An Architect Has Certified ‘Irregular’ Tal-Balal Road
The Transport Ministry has refused to say whether a compliance certificate has been issued for Tal-Balal road in San Ġwann almost one year after works were completed.
A compliance certificate, issued by the Planning Authority, is meant to be signed by an architect following the completion of a project.
The purpose of a compliance certificate is to ensure that the finalised project – in this case, the widening of Tal-Balal road – has been carried out in accordance with the relevant development permission.
With that being said, no architect is known to have signed off Tal-Balal road’s compliance certificate.
Back in September 2019, the Times of Malta had reported that two months after the works on Tal-Balal road had been finalised, “the project was still awaiting its compliance certificate from the Planning Authority”.
The Tal-Balal road widening works were completed almost a year ago in July 2019. The project was headed by Infrastructure Malta – without applying for a permit – and merely a few weeks after the completion of such project, Transport Malta said that it was dotted with illegalities.
Amongst other things, such illegalities included wrong signage, distorted cycle lanes, incomplete pedestrian paths, and illegal rubble walls.
The aforementioned rubble walls were also the subject of ample controversy when the Tal-Balal project was completed. The so-called rubble walls, which stretched out over a span of two kilometres, are in fact fake walls cladded with rubble material on one side and left unfinished at the back.
Nonetheless, since the completion of the Tal-Balal project, the Planning Authority has not yet issued an enforcement order over the illegal building of the fake rubble walls.
Last week, Lovin Malta approached the Transport Ministry asking whether a compliance certificate has been issued for the project, if a report has been carried out into the road’s irregularities, and if the ministry is confident that the roadworks have been done according to specifications and safety standards.
The Transport Ministry has not answered the questions despite several reminders.