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Julian Manduca
Malta is certainly not the best example of a banana republic and even if, among other things, people steal rubbish bins from the streets, leave their rubbish outside overflowing skips, build bus shelters that fail to provide shelter for either rain or sun, have no public transport to certain destinations after 8 pm, we probably do things better than some of the poorest countries in the world. To err is human but to persist in error is diabolical, the saying goes, and in many instances we do not seem to learn from experience. One such classical example was brought to MaltaToday’s notice this week.
In 1999 a case was brought against the Ministry for the Environment when a car suffered considerable damage because a manhole was displaced in a street in the limits of Luqa. The ministry was found guilty of negligence.
On 19 May of this year, a similar case was brought before the court, this time against the Parliamentary Secretary responsible for roads. In the second case the driver was travelling in Triq Stabal in Qormi in the direction of Marsa/Qormi - probably the same one of the incident of four years ago - and again met his fate because the manhole was not in its place due to the heavy rain. Once again the car was extensively damaged.
Manholes are often dislodged when it rains because the water floods the underground sewage networks. One would have thought after losing its first court case the government would have made sure that manholes are firmly fixed in place to avoid further incidents of this kind.
julian@newsworksltd.com
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