Malta’s state roads agency, Infrastructure Malta (IM), has come under scrutiny after claiming to have completed “1,000 projects” in the past year – a figure that, upon closer inspection, includes routine maintenance work such as filling potholes, replacing manhole covers and fixing traffic signs.
The list of works, obtained by The Shift through a Freedom of Information request, suggests that the agency’s recent publicity campaign may have overstated its achievements.
The initiative, launched by IM’s chief executive Steve Ellul, a failed former MEP candidate, and backed by Transport Minister Chris Bonett, had portrayed the completion of “three projects a day” as a sign of progress in tackling Malta’s worsening congestion problem.
However, the data revealed that many of the so-called projects were routine or minor tasks: The cleaning of culverts, the replacement of bollards, and the grouting of pavements.
Only a small fraction of the listed works could be considered substantive infrastructure projects, such as new road construction or the redesign of major junctions.
The national TV station trumpeting the ‘achievement’.
Sources within IM told The Shift that the agency has increasingly focused on publicity exercises rather than strategic planning to ease congestion. Despite receiving hundreds of millions of euro in public funding in recent years, Malta’s traffic situation continues to deteriorate, with daily gridlock now a fixture of the island’s transport landscape.
Currently, the only major project underway is the construction of a flyover in Msida, intended to relieve one of Malta’s most congested intersections. Other long-promised transport initiatives, including a mass transit system and an inter-island ferry network linking Bugibba, Sliema and Gozo, are still not implemented. Minister Bonett has yet to deliver on his pledge to launch the ferry service last summer.
The controversy underscores the government’s continuing struggle to balance headline-grabbing announcements with tangible improvements in Malta’s infrastructure. While officials have been quick to celebrate “delivery”, commuters remain mired in daily delays and increasingly sceptical of the agency’s claims of progress.
