Around €1 million is needed to correct freshly laid concrete at Ħal Far’s unfinished drag racing track, The Shift is informed, yet the government has not said whether Elbros Construction – the contractor responsible – will pay for its own defective workmanship.

The Shift is informed that concrete laid by Elbros near the starting line last summer left a deflection that must be removed before the quarter-mile facility can be used and secure the necessary international approval.

The corrective works require specialist contractors and expertise from abroad.

The works have not yet been carried out, leaving the track unusable years after its promised completion.

Elbros received a €7 million direct order from Infrastructure Malta to reconstruct the drag strip while simultaneously building Prime Minister Robert Abela and his wife’s private villa in Żejtun.

Now, the new concrete needs grinding, and the government has neither identified who will undertake that work nor disclosed who will pay, from which budget, or whether Elbros will be held financially responsible.

In recent parliamentary replies, Minister Byron Camilleri, who took over responsibility for the project from former education minister Clifton Grima, acknowledged that grinding was required but described it as an integral part of constructing the track surface to International Automobile Federation (FIA) requirements.

Experts told The Shift that the Minister’s explanation omitted the central issue that the concrete requiring correction was laid only last summer under the multimillion-euro reconstruction contract.

Nationalist MP Rebekah Borg asked specifically about a deflection of between half an inch and one inch, particularly near the starting area.

Camilleri did not confirm those measurements. He said work was approaching its final phases and technicians were communicating with the motorsport federation to obtain the necessary approval.

Separate questions by Borg, asking what the corrections would involve, their estimated cost, who would pay and how long they would take, received no specific answers. Camilleri referred Borg back to his reply about grinding.

He used the same response when asked whether British specialists had been consulted and to table the related correspondence.

The drag strip is just one of three facilities in the motorsport hub Labour promised in 2022, alongside a karting track and a full racing circuit.

Before the elections, Prime Minister Robert Abela had declared December 2025 as the deadline for the drag strip. Still the project remians incomplete.

Infrastructure Malta, headed by Steve Ellul, has since awarded Bonnici Brothers another €3 million direct order for the neighbouring karting facility.

The National Audit Office is examining the Elbros award following an ADPD request.