At a time when the incumbent government is doing the impossible to regain another term in office, the electorate must be very careful to use its two minutes of power to give a new life to this country.
Over the past 20 years, if not more, this tiny dot on the map has been haunted by several problems which seem impossible to solve.
As time passed, our competitors in the tourist industry have been doing wonders. I am not referring to highly developed countries which have resources and wealth, but to small countries which have reinvented themselves.
The state of our streets and roads reveals the inefficiency of our administration which has been accepted by all of us. To have bumpy roads, pot-holes and floods on days of heavy rain is the order of the day, rendering our country a third-rate nation.
Over the last 20years, the government has failed to forge a strategic plan to address the maintenance and construction of new roads.
During the CHOGM conference, the stretch of roads from Mosta to Ghajn Tuffieha were given a new lease of life. It was a piece of good work but it was so isolated that no one can say that we have solved the problem. In scores of our towns and villages you can hardly drive. Recently I had to go to a client’s house living in Zurrieq. I happened to be in Zabbar and from Zabbar to Zurrieq, the roads are so disastrous that you can hardly drive.
In recent years I saw great infrastructural development in Tunisia and the roads in Cairo, an impoverished city, are superior to ours.
Another perennial problem are the water cuts we experience during summer months and electricity failures during winter. Recently, my dentist phoned me, disturbed, apologising for cancelling an appointment because he had no power supply. Many man-hours have been lost in industry due to electricity shortages and shops have had to close down earlier than usual because their electricity bulbs went on strike.
In many of our streets the drainage system blesses us with its pleasant smell. Recently a friend of mine, who is an architect, told me that the Sliema area is sitting on a bomb ready to explode. He explained to me that the drainage system cannot sustain the multitude of apartments that have been built. The drainage system was planned to cater for the cute houses that embellished Sliema and not to receive the hugely added sewage thrown into the system from thousands of apartments. The government is in complete silence on this huge problem we will have to face in a few months’ time.
Then there is the question of dirt covering all parts of the island. Malta is a beautiful place but one of the dirtiest in Europe. How can one explain to me that in 20 years, a government has failed to clean up a few kilometres of space? The reason is that government had no plans for it. The local councils’ resources are limited and open spaces seem to belong neither to the local councils nor to the central government.
Apathy reigns supreme but in these few days leading to the elections, the government is hung up in a state of frenzy, patching roads and cleaning some areas on residents’ requests. Sometimes this creates a lot of traffic problems with people getting frustrated over the lack of co-ordination between contractors and the ADT.
To make matters worse the government tries to mask its years of inefficiency by inaugurating some ‘great’ project, like the Gozo ‘terminal’ in recent days. If I were the Prime Minister I would have blushed having to inaugurate a project which has ruined the environment beyond redemption. The ugly concrete monster in Mgarr has destroyed the picturesque view of Mgarr harbour and the Gozitans should feel themselves betrayed having lost such a gem. Tourists do not go to visit concrete blocks but try to find something different from their own environment. Even the thousands of Maltese who visit Gozo every year, cross to the sister island to breathe some fresh air from the countryside and open fields. Gozitans are getting more frustrated seeing their countryside suffering at the hands of bulldozers and other heavy plant machinery. MEPA has been blessing ugly structures that are devastating Gozitan beauty.
Inefficiency in government departments has made our lives miserable. Certain government departments have only one telephone line available for the public. If you are not lucky to get through over the telephone and have to go physically to certain departments, you will be wasting hours of your precious time only to find out that the civil servant ‘cannot help’. Government inefficiency has not been cured over the last twenty years in spite of the fact that customer charters have been hung up in government departments.
While we have been so heavily taxed over the years, we did not get the service we deserved. The problem is felt more by our elders and by people who badly need a service. Inefficiency has ruled the day and instead of remedying the situation government spokesmen have made their utmost to convince us that we are living in Utopia.
This is the message that the Prime Minister is sending us every day of his party’s campaign. After twenty years in power, his party is now discovering that ‘there is a lot to be done’. Why they didn’t do them in all these years?
Your two minutes of power on 8 March can make the difference. Don’t waste the chance to strengthen democracy by voting in a new government. Another five years of the same stuff would stagnate the country and subject all of us to unbearable arrogance.