Where Is The Malta Metro? Huge Project Is Completely Missing From Budget
Dreams of a Malta metro were dealt another blow after the project was completely left out of the government’s budget for 2023.
With the metro plans only launched for public consultation a few days before the 2022 Budget last year, the 2023 Budget was the first real chance people got to see where a Malta Metro really stands on the government’s list of priorities.
Advocates of a metro would have been left disappointed. There was no mention of a metro in Finance Minister Clyde Caruana’s budget speech or the financial estimates that were published afterward.
Although this isn’t doesn’t mean the metro has been definitively shelved, as there are other potential funding streams for it, one would have expected Caruana to at least mention it if the project was really on the government’s priority list for next year.
The metro’s absence from the budget was flagged by PN MP and climate change spokesperson Eve Borg Bonello.
“The revolutionary metro proposal that was pushed before the elections – it magically disappeared,” she said in a post which questioned the government’s commitments to combating climate change.
“Labour campaigned on climate change and the environment being a number 1 priority in the next 5 years,” she said. “Instead, we got a copy and paste speech with copy and paste proposals from last year that either failed or were not implemented. A typical PR greenwashing exercise.”
A render of a proposed Malta metro station
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.
The plans were announced with much pomp, including an information tent at the entrance to Valletta, with the launch itself costing almost €77,000.
However, the PL’s victorious manifesto was more cautious, only proposing further discussion and technical studies into the viability of a metro.
Earlier this month, Malta Employers Association director Joseph Farrugia urged the government to shelve the metro plans and focus its efforts and money on more pressing issues, including fixing existing infrastructure.
Cover photo: Left: Finance Minister Clyde Caruana, Right: A render of a proposed Malta metro station
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