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I am sure that Alan Delia, the co-coordinator of the CVA system in Valletta, was not allowed to put into practice his degree in public policy, as otherwise those of us who rely on Valletta for our daily bread would not be in the state of disarray we are in now. Like Mr Delia, yours truly also happened to know something about public policy, having studied at the Hubert Humphrey Public Policy Centre at the University of Minnesota.
And the basic rule in public policy is to make sure that in your decision you maintain a balance between the interests of all the stakeholders. That is what makes good leadership. But in the Park and Ride Scheme only the interests of those stakeholders who had the strongest ties with the government were taken into account, while others were given the cold shoulder, even though they always saw blue on Election Day. The Members of Parliament were silenced by being given total and unconditional access to Valletta. Little do they care about the hardships encountered by those whose business and office are situated Valletta.
For anyone to truly understand our troubles, I invite any member of the press to come and spend one day in the life of any professional whose office is in Valletta or in the life of the shop owner or in the life of a resident or in the life of a wholesaler. Only then will they understand what it is like to have to walk in the scorching sun and, come winter, in rain, to the car each time you need to leave Valletta during your working day and come back again. Come and see for yourselves the wholesalers in St Paul Street, who have to park their vans by the Grand Harbour and every time they receive an order, they have no choice but to make use of a wheelbarrow to carry the order back to their vans.
Not everybody is equal before the Park & Ride scheme. We have a new definition of a Valletta resident; we have a law for the shopkeepers, a law for the wholesalers, now a law for ‘tal-Monti’. Valletta residents have to stay in Valletta for a number of months in a year and they are continually being spied apon by the CVA cameras. The shop owners were given grace between 1.30pm and 4.00pm, the other self-employed whose office is in Valletta (like yours truly) were given no grace at all. The wholesalers were not given the same exemption as the shop owners, but are being treated like dirt when they are being precluded from parking their vans in front of their shops, because that area would be designated as an area for residents. So basically wholesalers cannot park their van anywhere, not even at the charge of 35c an hour to load and unload their merchandise.
But the 65 MPs are happy and so everybody should be happy. I cannot understand how on the eve of a general election, the Labour MPs fell into the government’s trap to keep their mouth shut: they ought to have rejected this ‘bribery’ and sided with the people. By their action they have joined in the chorus of the happy people who are so elated with the scheme.
Even the mayor is happy. At least, that is the impression he is trying to convey, although lately he has been avoiding certain streets of Valletta where he knows he is not welcome anymore. I cannot understand how he can play the three monkeys when most of the people who have been badly hit by the scheme are Nationalist voters. I understand that he does not live in Valletta and he may have the reserved parking space in front of his office, but he should not be afraid to face the aches and pains of the people who make a living from Valletta and provide the vibrancy of the city. This is why these people cannot understand our hardships.
Take my case: my work takes me to Valletta because that is where the law courts are situated and I have no other choice. Usually I have meetings outside Valletta or at MEPA and time does not allow me to waste 30 minutes to walk to and from my car. Every day is a race against time and using the Park & Ride scheme is for me and for any other self-employed person not bestowed with a nine-to-five job fixed to their desk, a waste of time. Not only that, but the CVA are charging us for a full hour every additional minute we spend in Valletta after the first one-and-half-hours.
To add further insult to injury, the Floriana car park has stopped its shuttle service to Valletta. Instead of being grateful to the government for boosting its business (thanks to the Valletta parking scheme) and improving the facilities to its clients, it terminated the shuttle service and is soliciting its clients into using the electric cab.
So not only does a client have to pay the parking fee, he also has to fork out an additional 35c each time he uses the cab to go into Valletta. Even annual subscribers to the service have had the shuttle service cost included in their subscription price.
We have been told that the ‘monti’ hawkers have been exempt from parking payment in Valletta. I have looked at the regulation in question and this law does not seem to have been officially implemented as of yet.
In effect regulation 9 of LN 205 of 2005 still states that ‘monti’ hawkers are only exempt from the payment of the charging zone access fee for a period of time starting 90 minutes before the opening time and ending 90 minutes after the closing time of the market. But who cares about the law nowadays! The Minister gave this gift to the ‘monti’ hawkers as if they are the only ones who do business in Valletta.
I admire Minister George Pullicino for acting hastily in favour of his Ministry and reserving about twenty or more parking spaces for his people. It is true that in doing so he has limited the free parking spaces in Valletta, but at least he had the courage to protect his people’s interests. Many professionals remain silent on the issue for one simple reason: some of them are inundated with retainers and so Lm2.70c a day for parking are peanuts. Others are taxing their clients for it and others are considering this as an additional tax. There can be no other reason why the Kamra tal-Periti or the Camera degli Avvocati, of which I am a committee member, has so far made no noise about it. Only the GRTU, which allied itself with government and championed the scheme, is now rallying against after realizing that it has been taken for a ride.
They try to sell the idea that the scheme is successful. Before its introduction they sold the idea that it was for environmental purposes. We did not buy that because we knew that the scheme would increase pollution as it increased traffic. And now they are trying to convince us that business is booming in Valletta because there has been a 32 per cent increase of vehicles visiting the city.
But if business is booming, why is the GRTU giving free parking vouchers to their members, which will in turn be handed out to clients?
May I also bring to the attention of the ADT that the colours of the parking spaces are fading and they are serving as a trap for drivers because it is very easy to mistake the green for the blue. Obviously, this is fertile ground for the traffic wardens to have a field day, giving tickets for cars parked in green spaces.
Imagine having to pay an additional Lm10 for the ticket besides the CVA tax because of the negligence of the ADT in not keeping proper maintenance of the paint on the parking spaces! You may tell me that there are the signs affixed to the way, but those signs were made for people with a very good long-sightedness because their dwarf size is nowhere to be found in the motor vehicle regulations.
But anyway, the parking scheme in Valletta, if not at all, is a prototype of how decisions are taken in this country. The scheme makes a good case study for public policy students because it is a showcase of what happens when innovation is imposed without taking into consideration the interests of all the stakeholders and striking a balance between all these interests.
Now we have the Board, whose members are still unknown, who has the most difficult task of trying to amend what the government disarrayed. Let us hope that it acts fairly and without interference and that it will not render the parking scheme in Valletta free only for the privileged and the powerful. |
